


Conspiracy and Misconduct

by the_egg_is_the_eat



Category: The X-Files, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angsty Keith (Voltron), Bad flirting (kind of), Canon compliant until Voltron S7, Crossover, Galaxy Garrison, Government Conspiracy, Kerberos Mission, Klance if you squint, Mulder has a crush on Skinner pass it on, Multi, Orphan Keith (Voltron), Pidge is still Katie at this point, Shatt if you squint
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-03-11 11:35:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13523415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_egg_is_the_eat/pseuds/the_egg_is_the_eat
Summary: The Kerberos Mission's failure was known by the public as what it was, a failure. But three crew members of high rank and intelligence disappearing into thin air while looking for signs of extraterrestrial life on a moon furthest from their planet seemed too suspicious to be just a failure. And Special Agent Mulder was going to prove it even if it took him to the middle of the desert.... Well, it was either that or the Garrison needed to fire its entire publicity team.





	1. Report Summary

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written as a 14 page report written like an X-File because the whole Kerberos cover-up is super sus and there's no way it wouldn't have caught the attention of someone like our boy Mulder. I've also chosen to name the chapters like each heading in the report so yay for creativity?
> 
> I am also aware that Voltron is set in the future and the X-Files is set in the 90s. Let's just pretend that this could happen on the same plane of reality.
> 
> Hope you enjoy! - Egg

~ ~ ~

 

“Goooood Morning, Scully!” 

 

Mulder had looked up from whatever he was working on at his desk to greet his partner as she entered the basement office with what he hoped didn’t sound like too much enthusiasm for eight in the morning on a Monday. And he did look as enthusiastic as he sounded, hazel eyes bright with the same passion he showed in what ended up being their more life-threatening cases, the ones that often nearly got them fired. 

 

Despite looking into so many cases of alien abduction and UFO sightings, this case was growing on him. The Kerberos Mission's failure was known by the public as what it was, a failure. Three crew members of high rank and intelligence disappearing into thin air while looking for signs of extraterrestrial life on a moon furthest from their planet seemed too suspicious to be just a failure. He just had to convince Scully of that fact.

 

He could already see Scully’s heart sinking to her feet and a stern expression crossing her face. “Really? No ‘how was your weekend’? No ‘did you miss me while you were gone’? This must be an interesting one.” She said sarcastically and folded her arms across her chest as she stared down at him. “What have you got for me today, Mulder?” She sounded somewhat more dejected with her tone. Uninterested. And frankly, if this got them in any more shit than the previous ones had, she was uninterested, he knew that by now. Or at the very least, he should know that by now. She gestured to the ‘mess’ of files and papers on his desk as he got up. Everything from medical records to newspaper clippings from what she could tell. He was going to try and sell this to her, he had to. If he never put in the effort, they would never actually investigate any of the cases he brought forward to her.

 

“Ever heard of the Kerberos Mission, Scully?” He said with a small grin, hoping to pique her interest with that statement alone. He grabbed a file from his desk and handed it to her for her to read along as he summarised. “In 2013, The Galaxy Garrison Academy, a training school for future astro-engineers, astronauts, and explorers of the great beyond begun to plan a mission to explore the furthest reaches of the milky way by sending a craft with three crew members to one of Pluto’s moons, Kerberos. The craft, ‘The Persephone’, was successfully launched two years later with a crew consisting of Commander Samuel Holt; mission commander and Head of Interplanetary Scientific Research, Matthew Holt; one of their best engineers and Commander Holt’s son, and Captain Takashi Shirogane; the best pilot to fly for the Galaxy Garrison… ever, according to his file.” He paused, allowing for Scully to ask any questions and to add a little suspense. He knew how to sell his cases… you don’t go around chasing aliens, satan and everything in-between without having to convince people that what you were doing was worthwhile. 

 

“And? What happened?” Scully sat down, leaning against the side of her desk with the file in hand, scanning through the report summary. He could tell that she was at least a little bit curious.

 

“They vanished. No communications to mission control, nothing on the satellite trackers. Nothing. They simply disappeared into thin air.” He looked at Scully with a raised eyebrow who had finished reading the report summary.

 

“Mulder. The official investigation was closed two months ago. The Galaxy Garrison issued an official statement saying that it was a pilot error. We can’t investigate this.” Scully let out a small sigh and walked over to Mulder, putting the file back on his desk with a stern yet somewhat disappointed expression. Why would she be disappointed if she wasn’t the slightest bit interested in what he was saying?

 

He picked up the file and pointed to a section that he’d underlined himself. “The official investigation was an internal investigation done by the Galaxy Garrison itself by Commander Mitch Iverson and Chief Executive Advisor Lauren Montgomery… the same two people who officiated the press release and also the same two people who recommended that Captain Shirogane even fly for this mission.” Mulder folded his arms across his chest, looking at Scully to see if she was catching on to what he was saying. 

 

“What are you saying, Mulder? That it’s impossible for human error to occur while flying a craft into deep space?” She sighed sceptically.

 

“What I’m saying… is that they wouldn’t be blaming Captain Shirogane for the failure of the mission if the Galaxy Garrison didn’t have something to hide.” He grinned. “Nor would seven different people across the various areas of expertise at the Galaxy Garrison have either been dishonourably discharged or have resigned because of it.” He moved to stand next to Scully and point to a list of names with their current status of employment… or lack thereof. “Two cadets, a press secretary and his assistant, two up-and-coming pilots and a tech engineer. All resigned or discharged after the official statement of ‘pilot error’...” He paused for a moment, letting the information sink in. “Think about it, Scully. Wouldn’t it have just been easier to blame the mission failure on a communications fault or a technical malfunction aboard the craft than to put the blame on the best pilot that ever flew for the Galaxy Garrison?”

 

He looked at her with those same big puppy-dog eyes that burned with passion and curiosity as he walked over to the television in their office and pressed play on the recording as he leaned back against his desk. It was the official announcement of the mission’s failure.

 

“-... After thorough investigation, on behalf of myself and the entirety of staff at the Galaxy Garrison, I regret to inform that the flight of the Persephone and the Kerberos Mission itself has been declared a failure. Unfortunately, all crew members perished as a result of a pilot error. To the families of Commander and Matthew Holt, and Captain Shirogane, we offer our condolences-...” It was the sombre, solemn voice of Commander Iverson standing at a podium in front of the Galaxy Garrison Academy with several officers on either side as they addressed the public. Commander Iverson barely got to finish his apology when a loud voice, a younger voice shouted. “That’s bullshit! That’s bullshit and you know it! Shiro isn’t dead! The mission didn’t fail because of him! It couldn’t have!” It was a young boy, perhaps sixteen or so with short but messy black hair and the uniform of a Galaxy Garrison Cadet. The kid sounded grief-stricken more than anything but he was causing a pretty successful uproar throughout the crowd and getting a couple of others saying the same thing. Two nearby officers entered from off-screen and grabbed him by the arms, escorting him from the crowd and dragging him away even as he screamed that the Garrison was lying and that it wasn’t ‘Shiro’s fault. The boy managed to get several punches in but he was eventually restrained, his fire never wavering. Even at the presence of the superior officers and their stern gazes. “I’ll prove it! I’ll prove they lied!” 

 

Mulder paused the video and looked at Scully, the voice of the young cadet echoing in his ears. He knew that there was more to this story and he could see it in Scully’s own eyes that she was beginning to see it too. The only problem would be convincing her to let him investigate the case. The Galaxy Garrison Academy was a highly protected, highly secretive military school that trained people for space exploration and researched the findings that they got from those missions. Hell, they probably had as many secrets as the Department of Defence and maybe just as much alien technology and samples hidden away in there too. Looking into it could mean the breaking of protocol… again. Having high-ranking military and government officials on their asses… again. Not to mention having that cigarette smoking bastard that always seemed to show up when they least wanted him to hanging around, waiting for the perfect moment to deceive, inveigle and obfuscate. To vanish all their evidence and leave them in the dust… again.

 

Scully waited for a moment before answering. “It would have indeed.” She frowned. There was no way around this. Mulder was dead-keen on finding out what happened to The Persephone and its crew and why. And in all truthfulness, she was too. Even if the case had already been investigated and official statements made, Mulder was right about one thing; It would have been a lot less suspicious to blame the mission’s failure on some sort of craft malfunction than to risk something like the cadet at the press release screaming that it was false, that it was a lie. 

 

Mulder nodded. “Either that or the Galaxy Garrison needs to fire and rehire their entire public relations team… or what’s left of them with the press secretary and his assistant already out of the job.” He chuckled to himself at his joke and looked at Scully. It’s not like he was wrong. The decision to release the official statement had seven people to leave the Galaxy Garrison, three of which had been dishonourably discharged… including the cadet that they saw on the tape. 

 

“So who was that kid on the tape?” Scully asked, watching as Mulder wound back the video to a clearer image of the boy’s face. The way the cadet had acted reminded her of Mulder himself, screaming what he believed in even as he got dragged either physically or mentally by government officials. God knows that’s happened before. Too many times. 

 

“Galaxy Garrison Cadet… now Ex-Cadet Keith Kogane.” Mulder began, reading from the summary report in his hand. He’d had to write out a separate summary sheet for the people he deemed ‘persons of interest’. “From what I gather, Captain Shirogane was his legal guardian. I think he also was the one who got Keith to join the Galaxy Garrison in the first place, or at least that’s what I’ve read so far. We’ll have to do more research, he’s a person of interest.” 

 

“A person of interesting character more like.” Scully scoffed. “He caused nothing less of all hell to break loose at a Galaxy Garrison press conference that was being broadcasted on live television.” The sentiment caused Mulder shrug his shoulders in what seemed like agreeance. She wasn’t exactly wrong. From what Mulder had also gathered, that little stunt at the press conference was most of the reason why he got discharged from the Galaxy Garrison.

 

He got up off his desk and walked behind it, spinning around in his wheelie chair before steadying himself to face Scully and reach for the phone that sat somewhere buried behind all the papers on his desk. “What do you say, Little Miss Sceptical... You in?” He flashed her a toothy grin. How could she say ‘no’ to a smile like that?

 

She flashed him one right back, rolling her eyes at the nickname. For someone who hated being given nicknames, not that he didn’t have a few of his own thanks to the Bureau’s kindheartedness, Mulder sure seemed to enjoy giving others nicknames. By now, Scully probably had more nicknames than the number of times she’d thought about quitting the X-Files and working for wiretapping and surveillance. Little Miss Skeptical and all the variations of that, Mrs McCrabby, Tall Starbucks, Mom, Nanny McCrabby, Doc, G-Woman, Spooky Junior… the list, unfortunately for her, went on. “Depends on what the boss says. You know you have to get his permission to investigate this case, and you need him to sign the 302 request.” 

 

“Already on it.” He dialled the number for Skinner’s secretary, hoping to get an appointment with the man as soon as possible. The 302 form he could do through his office without being there himself, in fact, he’d submitted it about half an hour earlier. But with his work on the X-Files, Skinner always wanted a personal summary of what the case was going to be before he actually gave them permission to pursue it. To know ‘how many toes they were going to potentially step on and how many favours he’d have to call in for later’, as the Assistant Director had so kindly put it for them in one of their prior meetings. The phone rang a couple of times before a sweet voice on the other end of the line picked up. 

 

“Hello, this is Assistant Director Skinner’s office, what can I do for you?” The secretary, Kim, sounded like she was in a fairly decent mood today. Well, she always sounded like that before she realised that it was the basement office calling to make an appointment. An appointment with Agents Mulder and Scully most often resulted in Assistant Director Skinner yelling, grumbling or asking Kim to get him an exceptionally strong coffee, an advil and a stress ball.

 

“This is the FBI’s most unwanted, calling to make an appointment.” Mulder grinned into the speaker and automatically Kim’s voice seemed to go down a tone. 

 

“Of course. I’ll see when he’s free.” There was silence on the phone for a couple of seconds before she returned. “He’s currently in a meeting but he’ll be free in ten minutes, I’ll let him know you’re on your way up.” 

 

“Thanks, bye.” Mulder hung up and sprung up from behind his desk, grabbing his blazer from the back of his chair and swinging it behind him to pull it on. May as well look official for the big man. He grabbed the case file and the summary report he’d made off his desk and looked at Scully. “We’re on in ten minutes.” He said it as if it were a show call and not simply a notification of when they’d actually be meeting with their boss but then again, Mulder did have a penchant for being somewhat over dramatic and flamboyant. In his opinion, it kept the basement office lively. ‘After all, what’s the point of being serious all the time?’ He had said. ‘Getting taken seriously. I imagine you aren’t familiar with it’. Despite the comically betrayed look he’d given her, her comment hadn’t ‘dulled his sparkle’ and he continued his antics. Of course, when had anything she’d said stopped him?

 

He gestured to the door, holding it open by the handle. “Ladies first.” Causing her to roll her eyes once more and exit the office. She must have had the strongest eye-muscles in the Bureau by now. She heard the sound of the basement office door lock and close behind them as Mulder walked alongside her to the elevator. He always locked the office door after they left. Part of her had been confused at first as to why. It was nothing but a bunch of unexplained files down there, forgotten from the minds of everyone else because they were no longer relevant. However, Scully had learned that with the number of people Mulder had pissed off over the years, there were very few people who could be trusted with some of those files and even if locking them out didn’t entirely stop them, it was a preventative measure that kept Mulder’s mind at ease… or rather, more at ease than it often could be. 

 

The elevator dinged as it reached the basement the silver metal doors slid open. She followed him in and stood beside him as the doors closed. Into the elevator and into what would hopefully be a case that didn’t get them killed or fired or in serious trouble with a dozen military and or government officials… but when was that ever true?


	2. Hypothesis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mulder and Scully get permission to pursue the Kerberos case file by Skinner and discuss the theories as to what happened to cause the mission failure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dumping a second chapter all in one day because I don't know when I'm going to get around to posting the next one.
> 
> I also what is keeping a consistent POV? I sure as hell don't know.

~ ~ ~

 

The elevator dinged when it reached the first floor, the metal doors sliding open to reveal the hallway, a couple of people going back and forward with files or coffee or other agents. They made their way down the hall to Skinner’s office, entering and giving a nod to Kim as they sat down on the couch. It was a familiar routine. They’d done it hundreds of times and that’s the way it would always have to be until they got fired or killed or shut down. Hopefully, none of those would happen anytime soon. 

 

Mulder’s leg was bouncing as if he were trying to keep pace with his mind. It was something he always did when he was on the couch in the waiting room of Skinner’s office. Scully knew that sometimes Mulder got nervous when making these sort of case proposals to their boss but they almost always got approved, if not by Mulder’s pitch than by how close he got to begging if Skinner initially said no. But Scully had begun to suspect that it might be something else. Something else that could cause Mulder’s pupils to dilate just slightly more than normal, could cause a tone bordering on flirtatious to appear in his voice every time he greeted the Assistant Director either on the phone or in person. Something that could cause him to get nervous in the waiting room. Nervous with anticipation rather than with fear. To her knowledge, Mulder had only dated women but his type was the more self-confident, borderline dominant type. Had their boss been a woman, Mulder would have already tried to woo him in all the ways he knew how and he would not have been subtle about it. Come to think of it… if Skinner were a woman, he would probably be exactly Mulder’s type. 

 

Her thoughts were interrupted as the door to Skinner’s office opened, the Assistant Director standing in the doorway with his typical stern expression. “Agents Scully, Mulder. You can come in now.” Scully turned her head to look at Mulder who was looking at their boss with such intensity that it almost scared her. She made a mental note to ask him about it later. Mulder got up quickly from the couch and walked into Skinner’s office, Scully tailing him. They each took their usual seat in front of the nice wooden desk, looking at each other before Skinner sat down. 

 

“So, I read the 302 and the summary note you sent me. Care to fill me in on why you want to go to Nevada?… or more directly, to the Galaxy Garrison Academy in Nevada?” His voice had a warning tone to it but Mulder simply smiled. 

 

“Sir, I think the Kerberos Mission failure is worth investigating further. It’s been marked as solved internally but I’ve reclassified it as an X-File and assigned it to the basement office because there’s more going in that case than what meets the eye.” He looked at Scully as if that was her cue to speak. 

 

“I agree with Mulder, Sir. The nature of the mission’s failure is suspicious at best and warrants further investigation. The official statement said that the mission failed due to a ‘pilot error’, meaning a screw up on behalf of Captain Shirogane, the best pilot to ever fly for the Galaxy Garrison. With the considerable outrage that this caused, the following discharges and resignations and Captain Shirogane’s record, it is highly unlikely that the error occurred on his behalf.” Scully stated. She was his voice of reason, his convincing point. Mulder made some wild accusations but if Scully could give them some merit then they were probably worth considering. 

 

Mulder began to speak again. “It would have been easier to blame the mission failure on a craft malfunction of any kind and it would have been given more credibility than their claims of pilot error. Isn’t that the least bit suspicious, Sir?” He sounded confident. That was always a good thing. That meant that he believed in what he was doing and Skinner seemed to notice. 

 

The man in front of them took a deep breath before getting a pen from the holder on his desk and signing the form in front of him, as well as the report’s summary to confirm that he would be overseeing the case. He then looked back up at the two agents. At Scully, then at Mulder. 

 

“Very well. But I do need to warn you that the Galaxy Garrison Academy is a military organisation. Well protected and rightly so. I’ll let you go and interview the people you need to but if I get any calls, and I mean any, that you’re sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong… I can not allow you to set foot on Galaxy Garrison grounds and you will be forced to continue your investigation outside of the Academy’s grounds. Is that understood, Agents?” By the sound of it, the statement seemed to be more directed at Mulder than at Scully. It was fair enough since Mulder was no stranger to trespassing on government property. Everything from quarantine zones to agricultural offices to Russian mines. Mulder was the ‘been there, done that’ of trespassing on government property, so it seemed.

 

And since the statement was so implicitly stated at Mulder, Mulder was the one to respond. “Understood, Sir. We’ll keep you posted.” 

 

Skinner nodded and gestured for them to stand, standing himself. “You’re dismissed.” He almost sounded relieved to be saying the words. He had a similar tone every time he dismissed them from his office… unless he was angry with them. At most his just seemed relieved and mildly concerned at what their investigation might drag into his office which was rightfully concerned about. 

 

Mulder and Scully left the office promptly and headed back to the elevator, letting the metal doors slide shut behind them before Mulder let out a sigh of relief. “Well, that went better than I expected it to go.”

 

Scully raised an eyebrow at the taller man. “And how did you expect it to go, Mulder?”

 

“I expected him to say no, to be completely honest.” He smiled to himself, tilting his head slightly so that he could look at her. The elevator dinged and the doors opened once more, revealing the oh so familiar basement hall. 

 

“Well it was just a case file, it wasn’t like you were asking him out for dinner.” Scully stated, looking at Mulder to see the reaction it would get out of him. His brows furrowed and he seemed to forget how to breathe for a fraction of a second before finding his composure. 

 

“No… it wasn’t.” He got out his keys and unlocked the office, making his way over to his desk and letting Scully close the door behind them. He removed his blazer and draped it over the back of his chair before sitting down and leaning back in his chair. It was a very comfy chair and considering the fact that he spent a large amount of his time in it, it may as well be comfy.

 

Scully walked over to her own desk and cleaned up any of the stray files to make way for the papers and mess that would undoubtedly come with this new case. “So, Mulder. Where do we begin?”

 

He leaned forward and got out a pen and a notepad to jot down ideas. “Get out your computer Scully. We’re starting with our theories.” He walked over to her desk and pulled out the notepad, writing a few things down. “I’ve already got four pretty sound ones.” The statement caused Scully to scoff and raise her eyebrows sceptically. It was an expression Mulder was all too familiar with by now.

 

“Define ‘pretty sound’.” She typed up the file number and began her report entry.

 

“First theory was, of course, that it was a pilot error. But I think we’ve already come to the conclusion with the help of Ex-Cadet Kogane that it’s BS and to disregard it. Especially since the Galaxy Garrison themselves haven’t offered up any evidence to support the claim themselves, or at least not publicly.” Mulder had to say it as a theory. They could have all the theories in the world but that’s how they got leads and an actual direction for their investigation. Scully typed down what Mulder hoped to be a nicer, more official-sounding version of what he was saying. Or at least just paraphrasing so that she could expand on it later.

 

“Our… the… second theory is that some sort of communications or craft malfunction did occur and while although probable, it doesn’t explain why the Galaxy Garrison wouldn’t have just come forward and said that it was the craft that caused the failure instead of their best pilot. Not only that but they also had a well-trained, highly-skilled engineer on board The Persephone. If a minor problem occurred then he would have been able to fix it. If a major problem occurred then whatever did the damage will be able to be seen on the craft survey that was done pre-launch… which Commander Iverson claimed was spotless. But knowing that guy, can we really trust anything he says about the Kerberos Mission?” 

 

Mulder shrugged his shoulders and moved the notepad away from his face so that he could look at Scully. Although the question was ridiculous and would probably get him slapped by someone, his intentions weren’t misguided. All of the important information about the Kerberos Mission was fed through Commander Iverson and it wasn’t until you began looking into these things did something like that become suspicious and worth questioning. “We’ll look into that theory but if we don’t manage to get ahold of any communication records or if we don’t see anything on that craft survey, we can discredit this one.” She said, glad that there wouldn’t be much work involved in either proving or disproving that theory. “The next theory wouldn’t happen to be that the entire mission had been a scam as a way to get rid of Commander Holt, Matthew Holt and Captain Shirogane for something they did?” 

 

Mulder shook his head with a smile on his face. The theory sounded like something he’d come up with. Damn, Scully knew him too well. It was hard not to, considering they’d worked together for years now. “Actually it’s mutiny. That would be my next theory but considering I watched the launch myself, live and there’s also a crowd of people who can confirm that the launch took place, I highly doubt it.” He chuckled. “With the mutiny theory, it could have either happened on Kerberos itself or on the journey there. For that, we’re gonna want to have a look at behavioural records, psychological evaluations and medical records of the crew as well as get the gist of their relationship to each other. We can interview Keith and the remaining Holts about that one… maybe dig around and see who the crew’s friends were as well if we don’t get any good answers from their families.”

 

Scully nodded and continued typing, making a note to investigate the whereabouts of Keith Kogane and the Holt family so that they could go and interview them. The Holt family presumably lived close by to the Galaxy Garrison considering two of the four of them worked there and as for the ex-cadet? There was no telling if he stuck around or where he was now. It would probably take a lot more to find the kid but they could always ask around with the cadets and see if any of them were close enough with Keith to know where he might go. “Alright, and the fourth?”

 

Mulder grinned. “They were abducted by aliens.”

 

Scully paused and looked up from her computer to flash him a knowing look, a look that held a familiar level of scepticism and expectancy. “Of course. It wouldn’t be an X-File if there wasn’t some aspect of explainability involving paranormal or extraterrestrial phenomenon.” She muttered before going back to her computer and typing in ‘Alien abduction… maybe.’

 

He rolled his eyes at her and put the notepad down on the desk. He folded his arms across his chest. “I’m serious Scully. You know how many alien abduction cases we come across on our sweet home Earth on the regular… wouldn’t you think that going further into space, further towards their home territory, would only increase the UFO traffic and opportunity for discovery? Hell, it would be like leaving a kid unattended with a bowl of candies!”

 

Scully smiled incredulously but wrote down his point anyway. “It would be like leaving you unattended with the Bureau’s entire supply of pencils… don’t think I haven’t forgotten.”

 

Mulder scowled childishly and glanced away in defeat. “Point taken.” He muttered.   
Scully let out a sigh and turned back from her computer to look at him. “Even if they were abducted by aliens, how could we possibly prove it? They were launched into space, Mulder. It’s not like we can go up there and get a forensic team to try and find evidence. Even your Cancer Man wouldn’t be able to get his cronies up there without pulling more strings than even he can possibly pull.”

 

Mulder’s frown seemed to deepen. “We’ll find a way. Once you eliminate all of the other theories, the one remaining, however improbable, must be true.” 

 

“Save that for when we actually eliminate those other theories.” She closed her computer. “Should we start with the craft survey and communication logs? Then we can get that out of the way and talk to the Holts and Keith Kogane.” 

 

“Sounds like a plan, Scully. Two tickets to the Galaxy Garrison coming right up.” He smiled and got on his own computer, checking the 302 bookings for flights to Nevada, motel bookings in the general area of the Galaxy Garrison and the rental car they would be using. He wrote down the details on a sticky note and peeled it off the pad, putting it in his pocket before standing up and grabbing his blazer off the back of his chair and pulling it on once more. “The flight’s at one so pack your bags. I’ll meet you at the airport at twelve, same place as we normally meet.” 

 

He shoved all the files they’d need into a briefcase and headed out of their office, letting Scully out with her laptop and the things she needed before locking up behind him and heading down the hall, disappearing into the dim light of the Bureau’s carpark.


	3. Theory 2; Craft Error

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mulder and Scully go to the Galaxy Garrison to see what they can find out about the Kerberos Mission from the available files and meet a boy who has some insight into one of the discharged cadets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Klance if you squint. Also Alex 'Ratboy' Krycek gets a reference.

~ ~ ~

The flight was short and sweet, thank god for the fact that they were only flying two states away because if that baby two rows behind them had cried one more time, Mulder had been about ready to kill someone and by the look on Scully’s own face, she had seemed to feel a similar way about the constant ear-piercing screams. They eventually landed at McCarran International and got their bags from the overhead before taking out their rental car and setting off. A blue car that was slightly dusty on the underside but looked like it had comfy seats.

 

It was going to be a pretty long drive before they got to Halton, the residential town for the families of people who worked at the Galaxy Garrison. It was so small that it couldn’t exactly be called a town, especially since well over half the residents worked at the Galaxy Garrison full time and didn’t have any relationships outside of their offices or dormitories.

 

Mulder looked out the window with a small smile on his face as Scully looked at the nap on her lap, bopping his head to something on the radio before it was abruptly stopped and he had Scully’s eyes glaring at him from the passenger seat. “Mulder. You have got to be kidding me.”

 

“Scully, what did I do this time?... because we have been driving for over an hour and a half and you have been beside me the entire time. I couldn’t do anything that you wouldn’t see.” He said smugly, reaching to turn on the radio once more. Scully swatted his hand away.

 

“This residential town… Halton, you know where it is right? It’s in the Nevada Triangle.” She deadpanned. 

 

“Congratulations, Scully. You can read a map! Skinner must be so proud of you.” Mulder chuckled at the statement which when he looked at Scully, realised that it had only caused her frown to deepen. “Yes it’s in the Nevada Triangle, so is the Galaxy Garrison. And?”

 

“And… so is Area 51. You’re not planning anything stupid, are you? Because this is exactly what Skinner was talking about.” She drew out the triangle on the map to prove her point and circled where she knew Area 51 to be. It was highly unlikely that the Galaxy Garrison and Area 51 didn’t work together from time to time but snooping around there with Mulder could mean very bad things if they didn’t stay on track. “This area is a serious conspiracy hotspot. Over two thousand planes have been downed in this general area, never to be seen again. Even I know that.”

 

“It’s… a convenience, wouldn’t you say? And I’m not going to do anything stupid. We’re just checking out the Galaxy Garrison. That’s it.” He said in a voice that Scully hoped was a promising one. She did not want to have to call Skinner and say that Mulder had been incarcerated by the Department of Defence and was currently being kept in Area 51. 

 

Mulder had turned the radio back on, singing along to the music as he drove… it was probably to stop him from getting hypnotised by the constant forward motion. A distraction. Scully just sighed and leaned back in the chair, watching as the desert passed them by. 

~ ~ ~

 

They eventually arrived in Halton, granted entrance by the guards at the gate before entering. The town was small but rows of suburban-looking houses could be seen, several of them quite sizeable. ‘That was what you got when you worked in secrecy’, Mulder supposed. They passed a school on the way to the empty two-bedroom apartment they would be allowed to use for the duration of their stay in Halton, calling dibs on which bedroom they’d each have, unpacking their bags and getting what they’d need for their investigation at the Galaxy Garrison, the buildings of which they could see out their window in the distance.

 

They dropped off their bags and got back in the rental car. Driving off towards the Galaxy Garrison Academy. It was a huge complex of buildings and a couple warehouses. It would have to be sizeable to hold labs, classrooms, flight simulators, sleeping quarters for all the personnel and offices for all the important staff and whatever else was hidden in that complex. 

 

“The Galaxy Garrison. It’s huge.” Scully remarked as Mulder parked the car in the visitor’s parking lot, presumably for family members and government agents coming to check up on the facility, and got out.

 

“Wanna know why? ‘Cause it’s full of secrets.” He winked and grabbed a tape recorder, a notepad and a pen before getting out of the car and shutting the door behind him. The clicking sound of the car locking getting lost amongst the noise of military trucks and planes making their way around the complex.

 

Scully’s eyes widened. “Did you just quote Mean Girls at me, Mulder? You’re a grown man.” 

 

“Do you see it stopping me?” He raised his eyebrows as they neared the main entrance. 

 

“No.” She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “No, I don’t.”

 

Once they got close enough to the main entrance, Mulder and Scully were halted by two military personnel in the standard olive green uniform of Galaxy Garrison officials, particularly those of high rank. The first of which appeared to be a beefy blond man with pouty lips and beady eyes. The sort of guy you’d expect to be the most popular man at a party because of his looks. The other, however, Mulder recognised immediately from the videos he’d watched and rewatched of Garrison launches and press conferences. A man with darker skin, a crooked nose and a menacing face… more menacing than Scully in the morning. Commander Mitch Iverson.

 

“I’m Special Agent Mulder from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, this is Special Agent Scully. I assume you were expecting us?” Mulder spoke carefully. He was standing before the man who was probably perpetuating all the lies of the Kerberos Mission. He had to keep his cool.

 

“We were. I’m Commander Iverson, this is Captain Pierce. We’ll be here to answer any of your questions.” He said the last sentence with blatant disdain for Mulder and Scully and the fact that they were digging their noses around in an investigation that had been closed and put to the back of his mind. People needed to accept the ‘facts’ and move on with their lives but of course, they never seemed to do that. 

 

“Wonderful. Do you have some sort of database of all the records and transmissions of, to or about The Persephone that you can show us?” Mulder asked, tilting his head slightly as he walked behind Commander Iverson and Captain Pierce into the Galaxy Garrison’s main building, trying to walk a little slower so that Scully wouldn’t chew him out later about the inconsiderate speed at which tall people walked. He’d been chewed out a lot about that. He couldn’t help it if he got excited about a case or a lead or whatever they were going to investigate. 

 

Commander Iverson seemed to groan at that question but it was barely audible. “Yes. I’ll take you to Missions Library.” He said bluntly, leading the two agents down a series of corridors before they eventually arrived at a library with the tag ‘L1: Missions Library’ next to the door. The door swung open to reveal an almost silent room with rows upon rows of shelves with files on them. Hopefully, they were sorted by date and not by alphabetical order because otherwise it would take a while to get ahold of the information they needed. There were also three rows of long tables against the back wall, presumably for studying or for briefings and meetings about mission details. 

 

“Kerberos Mission files are that way under 2010s-, look at what you want. If you want to speak to myself or Captain Pierce, my office is on Level 2 in the Administration Block.” He turned to exit the library, leaving Mulder and Scully to not only navigate their way through the files... but also through the rest of the Galaxy Garrison in case they needed to contact him further.

 

Mulder lead Scully towards the sign that directed them to files and details for missions from 2010 and onwards, eventually finding the files on the Kerberos Mission. It took up a decent amount of space, presumably with flight plans and trajectories, craft designs and surveys, and crew personnel files and records. But considering the size of the Kerberos Mission section compared to the other mission sections they’d passed on the way there… it was considerably smaller. 

 

“There’s… a lot less than I thought there’d be.” Scully remarked as she began looking at the headings on the file dividers and binders. 

 

Mulder chuckled and smiled, starting on the lower shelf. “Heh, that’s what she said.”

 

Scully sighed. “Mulder, first of all, I hope for your sake that no woman has ever said that about you. Secondly, we are in a military institution… could you at least attempt to be subtle?” She raised her eyebrows at the taller man who seemed completely indifferent to her objections.

 

“Mhm. Yes, ma’am.” He said absently as he pulled out one of the binders and flicked through it before holding it up to Scully. “I found a craft survey and analysis.” He paused for a moment. “Correction, I found craft report 100829052015… the survey that was taken on the morning of the launch. And they had an inventory check. Find anything in the way of transmissions?” Mulder stood up to have a look at the part of the shelf Scully was looking at.

 

“I found launch transmissions but nothing beyond that.” She grabbed her own file and waved it in front of Mulder’s face. “Nothing in terms of transmissions that indicate that they ever, in fact, landed on Kerberos.” 

 

They walked over together to one of the long study tables, putting their files out in front of them. They had decided to swap since Scully would probably be better adept at reading the craft report while Mulder preferred to read through the transmission transcripts and the audio files that had also included in the file in CD sleeves which he had promptly inserted into the disk drive of one of the computers stationed on the study desks.

. . .  
“Two minutes to launch, Persephone. How are your systems looking?”  
“Matt, Shiro? How are you looking over there?”  
“Good for go, Dad! All systems check. We’ve got good readings at the ready.”  
“Flight systems and trajectory are looking good for me, Sir.”  
“All clear up here then, Commander. Everything seems to be working great. We’re green for go when you’re ready.”

“Four… three… two… one… zero! You have T minus three minutes until blackout.”  
“Alright crew, buckle up and let the Persephone take us up and away, hahaha.”

“We’re up and out! The launch was a success! We’ll catch you on the flip side, Commander!”  
“Good luck.”  
. . .

 

Mulder felt his chest swell with pride at the successful launch transmission, the deafening applause the in the background and the hollers and cheers of mission control. He remembered making sure to turn on the little television in his office to watch the launch live. He remembered the pride he had and Scully would probably remember the big grin on his face… 

 

“Mulder.” 

 

His name being called pulled him out of the memory and he slipped the headphones down to rest on his neck. “The launch transmissions are there and just how I remembered them from the live broadcast but there’s nothing past the confirmation that they were out of the blackout. They could be anywhere between here and Pluto and we’d never… hold on a sec.” He slid the headphones back on to listen to a scratchy transmission stating that they passed Saturn before the tape went silent completely and the recording finished. “Scratch that. Nothing after the confirmation that they passed Saturn.”

 

Scully nodded and slid the craft survey report over to Mulder. “I’ve looked at this about four times now. Nothing seems out of the ordinary. In fact, everything is even listed as ‘perfect condition’. If it was a major craft malfunction, there would be some trace of it… the only thing we know is that either the communications systems malfunctioned or they were purposefully cut off by either Mission Control or The Persephone.”

 

Mulder nodded in return and went over to the photocopier in the back of the library next to the study tables with the craft reports and the transmission transcripts. He returned with the copies and put the originals back in their files and heading over to the shelf to return them, Scully following just behind him. Mulder went to go towards the exit when he heard two cadets talking in hushed at the end of the row. They seemed to be heading for the Kerberos section.

 

“So first Keith and now Katie? I mean, I know Keith had problems but Katie’s discharged too? Man, for an honest mission they’re making it seem pretty sus, don’t you think?” The first speaker was a tall, lanky boy with short but somehow messy brown hair and tan skin.

 

“Quiet! Lance… you don’t wanna be next, do you?” His partner, a larger kid with darker skin and shaggy hair tied back with a headband.

 

“No! Of course not! I’m just saying that maybe she got discharged because she found something.” 

 

Mulder decided to step in. Maybe these kids could tell him about Katie, he presumed they were talking about Katie Holt. And maybe even Keith Kogane. “If you’re wondering if she found anything incriminating in those files, she didn’t. We didn’t either.” Scully simply folded her arms across her chest, letting Mulder direct the conversation. She’d step in if he got out of line… that was her job.

 

“Yeah, and you’re what? Working for the Garrison? Trying to sway us from learning why two of my classmates are now gone?” The lanky boy put his hands on his hips, raising a thin eyebrow at Mulder. 

 

“Actually we work for the FBI. We want to know what happened just as much as Katie Holt does.” He grinned, turning on the recorder in his pocket. “What happened with Keith… did you know him well?”

 

The lanky boy seemed to sigh, rolling his eyes. “Did I know Keith? The guy was like… my rival. Y’know neck-and-neck and all? He was in my flight class in second-year cadet school but he got into Fighter Class and I didn’t. Anyway… he’s always had anger issues and stuff. Doesn’t like the officers or authority in general. Shiro was like his impulse control. But then after Shiro was declared dead, he kinda lost it. Always having a go at Iverson, Pierce, anyone and everyone he could get his hands on. Threw a punch at me too! After he interrupted the Garrison press conference about the Kerberos Mission… he got discharged and I took his place in Fighter Class. Which is great and all but it’s just not the same without him.” 

 

Mulder nodded. Keith seemed to be quite a rebel but apparently, he was a good pilot since with what he knew of the Garrison’s pilot gradings, Fighter Class was as high as you could go. “Do you know where he might be staying now?” He asked. The location of the Holt family home was listed on Commander Holt’s file as well as the files for both of his children so they were not in short supply for ways to get ahold of the address but Captain Shirogane had lived on-site and Keith didn’t have an address listed. 

 

The lanky boy shrugged his shoulders, his hands raising up slightly. “Dude. No clue… actually.” He paused with a slight frown on his face. “He and Shiro used to take Shiro’s motorbike out into the desert when they were both free. Maybe they have a place out there? If there is, you can bet that Keith lives there now. I saw them leave from my dorm window.” He grinned brightly, probably glad to help. The grin was infectious since Mulder soon found himself smiling a little too. Scully remained unaffected. 

 

Mulder held a finger up, a silent order for the two boys to stay put as he quickly dashed to the desk of the library and found a map of the Garrison’s buildings, jogging back over to the boys and Scully with his coat flapping around at his calves. He got a pen from his coat and held it out to the lanky boy. The map was unmarked. “Can you circle where your dorm is and about which direction they drove off in when Keith and Captain Shirogane went out into the desert together?”

 

“Sure thing, Sir!” The boy grabbed the paper and looked for Dormitory Block B, circling approximately where his dorm was and which way they went. “There you go. Hope you find him… Keith. If you see him, tell him he’s an idiot and... that I miss him.” The boy grinned sadly and Mulder looked at Scully with a sympathetic look in his eyes. 

 

“I’ll do my best… Lance, was it?” Mulder asked, folding the map up and putting it in his coat.

 

“Lance McClain, Sir.” The boy offered a mock salute and grabbed the arm of the larger boy he was with, walking past Mulder and Scully. The two agents looked at each other before making their way to the exit.

 

“Hey, Scully… do you think-...” He began but he was quickly interrupted.

 

“No, Mulder. We are not snooping around while Commander Iverson doesn’t have his eyes on us. If anybody found out, Skinner would skin you. You don’t call him the skin man for nothing, I know that much.” She raised her eyebrows and tilted her head to look up at Mulder and the comical frown she found on his face. 

 

“But mooooom.” He whined sarcastically, attempting to give her some form of puppy eyes. “Who knows what they’ve got kept here?” 

 

“You said it yourself, Mulder. They apparently keep all the interesting things at Area 51. Now let’s go so that I can write up my field report and so that you can… do whatever it is you do when we go to motels. Well, apart from running off to nowhere, getting drugged, attacked or solicited.” Scully pursed her lips, hoping not to be disappointed.

 

Her kitten heels seemed deafening against the tile floor of the Garrison’s main building as Mulder reflected on the number of times he hadn’t actually been able to get peaceful rest in his motel room. Scully was right. He often wanted to follow leads at ‘ungodly hours’, had been drugged at least twice. He was no stranger to being attacked whether it was a stairwell, a motel room, out in the open or in his own damned apartment and as for being solicited? Well, he wasn’t exactly a stranger to flirting on the job either. And he did get drunk that one time when the policewoman he had been working with had barged into his room free of inhibitions and promptly tried to sexually assault him but he preferred to think that she was just a little off her rocker. 

 

He sighed softly and opened the main door to the Garrison’s building, walking out into the carpark. “Yes, mom.” He shrugged his shoulders and unlocked the car and waited for Scully to sit down and buckle up before driving off back to their apartments.

 

“So there goes our craft malfunction theory.” He said nonchalantly as he drove.

 

“Oh come on, Mulder. You never believed it was a craft malfunction anyway. You’ve got nothing to be sad about.” 

 

“Touché. We’re nought for two at this point. Let’s see how far the mutiny theory gets us.” He turned to look at her, flashing her an excited grin. “My area of expertise.”

 

“Actually, mutiny would be more up Krycek’s alley.” She snorted. “But in terms of looking at psychological records and determining the likeliness that they ever decided to kill each other mid-flight? Sounds like the time of your life.” 

 

“You know what else is the time of my life? Aliens. It could always be aliens, Scully.”

 

“Well…” Scully found herself sighing and pinching the bridge of her nose once more. “Let’s just cross that bridge when we get to it.”


	4. Investigation Recount of Katie Holt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mulder and Scully travel to the Holt residence and talk to Katie Holt about their investigation. Mulder has some thoughts about his family and the losses of his past.

~ ~ ~

 

After leaving the Galaxy Garrison, Mulder and Scully drove back into Halton in search of the Holt residence. After getting the information they needed about the craft failure and communications fault or essentially the lack of either, it was time they headed on to their third theory and whether or not any of the crew would have been likely to be involved in some physical altercation with each other that either caused the error or their deaths. 

 

From reading the personnel file of Commander Samuel Holt, the man didn’t strike Mulder as a particularly hostile or mentally unstable figure… especially since the man had been on a dozen prior missions and no acts of violence had occurred. If anything, he seemed open-minded, optimistic and a generally passionate man as both a Mission Commander and the Head of Interplanetary Scientific Research. He was a family man in his late fifties, had a wife and two happy looking kids and a stable job. Even in his profile picture, the man struck Mulder as particularly happy with his life. 

 

His son, Matthew Holt didn’t seem to be of any violent nature either. He had a similar expression to his father’s profile picture, a pure expression of passion and lust for life. That seemed like a happy family if he ever saw one. No hidden sorrow or hurt in their eyes, no tinges in their smiles. The sight struck something within Mulder that let off a sharp pang of… jealousy? He had come to terms with his ‘tragic backstory’ years ago. The loss of his sister that still made his chest bleed when he saw the autopsy pictures of little brunette girls. The divorce of his parents who couldn’t be bothered continuing the facade of happiness after their family had fallen apart. Not for their neighbours and colleagues and somehow certainly not for their own son. The distance that his mother had from him and his father… the way her memories slipped through her fingers like rainwater, never to be seen again because she never wanted to see them again. The way his father drank himself into oblivion, dulling the aching pain of losing his daughter… the way he would yell and curse and scorn a younger, more fragile Mulder because somehow it was his fault. Even though he knew now and had known for many years that it wasn’t in his control, that it wasn’t his fault, that small part inside of him still heard the echoes of his father’s words. That it was his fault that Samantha would never come back. 

 

It didn’t do anything productive for him or anyone else to think about the miserable beginning of his wild, UFO chasing existence… except fuel his passion for the X-Files. So that’s what he did. But it still didn’t stop the man from envying the sight of happiness, passion, and familial love and commitment. 

 

Then there was Captain Shirogane, a man who had graduated as the best pilot of his class and broke every record there was to break. A man who had been recommended to pilot a craft into unknown territory, into deep space. The thought in itself was something Mulder respected. The man also took in a younger cadet from nowhere and trained in him his ways… well, every way except kissing up to the Galaxy Garrison superiors. The thought made Mulder smile a little. 

 

Of course, they would need some reason to engage in a physical altercation in the first place if a mutiny had taken place. They had all been open and willing to accept the possibility of discovering extraterrestrial life on Kerberos. That’s what they had mentioned in their comments about what they were looking forward to when they went to Kerberos. It’s why they were selected for the mission. Perhaps maybe it was a romantic thing. Captain Shirogane was an attractive man, Mulder wouldn’t deny himself of the fact, perhaps Matthew and Captain Shirogane were romantically involved and something came up on board involving that. Perhaps the relationship was less than consensual. That would start a fight quickly. 

 

He was snapped out of his mind by Scully once again as they drove. 

 

“Mulder. You awake in there? Having a party in your head without me?” She teased, raising her eyebrows at him as he turned down one of the roads. 

 

Mulder rolled his eyes with a sly grin creeping its way onto his face. “Oh, Scully. If you were invited… it would be a whole different kind of party.” He winked.

 

Scully simply rolled her eyes right back at him and folded her arms over her chest, scowling. “That’s disgusting.” She muttered under her breath.

 

He simply shrugged his shoulders. “You asked. I answered.”

 

“Anyway. What’s our plan of action for the rest of today?” She turned her head to look up at him. It would be best if she was in on the loop. Especially when it came to investigating an X-File.

 

“We’re gonna head over to the Holt residence, see if we can talk to Colleen and Katie Holt about their relationship with the other half of their family and the pilot, Captain Shirogane… if they knew him well, what he was like. That sort of thing. I’ll also make a call to Dr Callister and see if we can pick up all the psychiatric evaluation records of the crew of The Persephone from the Halton Medical Center. We can look over those and compare them with our interview with the female Holts from today.” He looked at Scully for confirmation that she agreed to the plan. 

 

“Sounds good to me.” She said finally, glancing out the window. “How close are we?”

 

Mulder slowed the car down and parked at the curb. “Arrived.” He said in the blandest, most GPS-esque voice he could manage which caused Scully to giggle quietly as she got out of the car. Mulder followed suit and locked the car, looking at the suburban Holt residence. 

 

The Holt residence was a quaint suburban house with a decently kept courtyard and an orderly looking house. It hardly stood out amongst the other houses on the street as one housing two mourning, grieving people. A mother who had lost a husband and a son and a daughter who had lost a father and a brother. The windows were all closed and if Mulder hadn’t known better, he would have assumed that nobody was home. He approached the door and knocked, awaiting a response with Scully standing at his side. 

 

It was a few minutes before the door opened to reveal a small girl no taller than five foot one. She was a similar height to Scully herself with Mulder towering over the both of them. The girl had long, strawberry blonde… bordering on ginger hair that was tied back in a ponytail. She was wearing a sweater and shorts so she looked comfy but her face showed scorn and grief and someone who wasn’t ready to take any bullshit behind those round-framed glasses. 

 

“Who are you?” She asked, glaring up at Mulder and Scully. 

 

“Special Agents Mulder and Scully from the FBI,” Mulder spoke calmly and as if telepathically cued, he and Scully slipped out their IDs. They had done it so many times by now that they were essentially synchronised with routine actions like flashing their identification. “We want to talk with you about the Kerberos Mission.” He hadn't been expecting such a young girl to answer the door since he was planning on speaking to Mrs Holt but this must have been Katie Holt, the younger daughter. He'd read up a little on her, seems she had been prodigal with technology, just like her older brother and was dishonourably discharged from the Garrison, probably for investigating the failed mission. “Is your mother home?”

 

The girl narrowed her eyes a little more but she opened the door for the two agents to enter the house. “No. She’s not. Even if she were, I doubt she’d want to talk to you. My mom has done too many of these interviews for the Garrison and their official investigations. She could use a break, I mean she lost her son and husband. You guys don’t know when to quit it.”

 

Mulder looked at Scully briefly as they entered the house, Katie Holt leading the way. He had been in her position before. The remaining child of a family that had been through a loss, the grief, the questioning, the anger and irritability of his parents. He remembered it too well and he knew it must be hard on Katie. 

 

“We’re not with the official investigation, Ms Holt.” Scully said in that smooth, reassuring voice of hers. The one that Mulder found himself sometimes wishing he could wake up from his nightmares listening to.

 

She pulled up a chair and Mulder followed suit, letting Katie take her own. They were seated in the lounge area on an armchair and the couch respectively. Scully took the armchair. This was Mulder’s expertise after all so he may as well conduct the interview so that he could find what he was looking for but she would watch, ask and reign in when she felt she needed to. 

 

“Do you think it was a pilot error?” Mulder asked, folding his hands over his lap and looking at the young girl on the couch. 

 

Katie’s shoulders relaxed. “No. I don’t think it was a pilot error. I know it wasn’t. I got into the files and I have tech that’s proof of it all. Damn Garrison kicked me out because I started to question them... now I have this.” She gestured to her foot that had a house arrest cuff on the ankle. “If you’re not with an official investigation, then why are you here? The case was closed.”

 

Mulder raised an eyebrow at the house-arrest anklet. Seemed a bit extreme to detain a fourteen year old in such a fashion, especially for merely questioning what the Galaxy Garrison had publicised as 'the truth'. Although he couldn't blame her. He'd had his fair share of run-ins with people who didn't want him sticking his nose where they didn't think it belonged. "I'm here because after the preliminary investigation remained largely unsolved because the authorities didn't want to waste any more time on something that could be explained away with a few condolences and a public statement. Our job…” He paused and looked at Scully briefly before turning back to Katie. “is to ‘waste our time’ on the things people leave unsolved. To find the truth."

 

It was perhaps a little forward of him to describe their job in such a manner but it wasn’t untrue and frankly, it was what he thought Katie needed to hear. The reassurance that people believed her. That they should believe her.

 

The girl seemed a little shocked herself at the sentiment but also seemed to be fueled by it. Exactly what they wanted. She huffed a frustrated breath out before speaking once more. “They want it remained unsolved. Trust me, I’ve tried getting it out there. This town believes anything the Garrison says all because they’re a military school. To me, the case was solved as soon as my family went missing. I know them. They’re amazing pilots. That wasn’t some... pilot error. If people opened their eyes then maybe they’d see how many lies they’ve told.” She crossed her arms, shifting her weight.

 

Mulder nodded with a smile. They were on the same page. This was good. It was always better to interview people on this case if you were equal, or you could at least have a mutual understanding of the situation. “I have a couple of questions I want to ask about if that’s okay with you?”

 

Katie nodded silently and shifted back into the cushions of the couch, letting Mulder do the talking. Scully also seemed adamant to watch but he knew that she had a recorder going so that they could transcribe the conversation later.

 

"I originally had four possible theories. The first is that it was, in fact, a pilot error. But considering that our investigation in centered around proving that to be a lie, we can elect to ignore it. The second is that the craft itself malfunctioned or some sort of communications error occurred but we just spent most of this afternoon checking that out and with clean launch survey, that in itself is highly unlikely… especially with the crew that was chosen. Does that sound similar to what you know?” Mulder didn’t even need to read these off a notepad. Not only because of his eidetic memory but also because he’d gone through the theories so many times in his head that he was essentially fluent in ‘theories of the Kerberos Mission’.

 

Katie shrugged her shoulders, seeming to agree with the theories thus far. “Sounds about right to me. It just about covers everything that’s on public record… or that you can access at base level clearance at the Garrison.” 

 

“Okay. I would like to talk about your family’s relationship with one another if that’s okay?” Mulder began. Katie nodded her head and Mulder continued. “What was it like at home with your father and brother?”

 

Katie had a look in her eyes. That sad, longing look of grief. The look that Mulder himself got when he got a case that reminded him of Samantha. It was a familiar look. “It was good. Dad worked pretty late sometimes but he was always excited about what I was doing at school, how Matt was going with cadet training or his engineering classes. He loved Mom. Always has. They’re the most supportive family I could ask for.”

 

Mulder let the information sink in and paused before asking further. “What about your family’s relationship with the pilot, Captain Shirogane?”

 

Katie smiled. “My older brother, Matt, and him were best friends. Matt and Shiro were even in the same group for flight simulation classes. He was over a lot of the time, so I grew up knowing him. He’s as much family as my actual brother.”

 

He looked at Scully, just to make sure that she was getting all of that before continuing with Katie. The friendship between the Holts and Captain Shirogane seemed to be nothing but positive. “Did they have anything that they disagreed on? Anything that they ever fought about?”

 

The girl shook her head. “Mom sometimes chided them about taking such a mission into deep space. That it could be dangerous and that she wanted to see all her boys home and well. But they never fought about anything more than petty teases. Not that I knew of anyway. It’s why they were chosen for the mission together. Because they would have to work together like angels if they were going to be stuck together for so long.” She chuckled softly and Mulder couldn’t help but smile too. 

 

“So there was no way that your father and brother could have had a dispute with him that resulted in a physical altercation?” Scully asked, breaking her silence. As fun as it was to watch Mulder and Katie go back and forth, she was still there.

 

She shook her head once more. “No way. Dad, Matt and Shiro aren’t violent people. They’ve never been the sort of people to get into a punch-out over something. They didn’t kill each other up there either if that’s what your next question was.” 

 

"I was actually wondering if your brother and Captain Shirogane were romantically involved." Mulder said, hoping that the question didn't seem too accusatory. It was always hard to pick our the people who would be okay with bringing up homosexual relationships and those who would escort him out of the house for even bringing up such a 'preposterous idea'.

 

"I don't think they were. If they were dating then Matt didn't tell me about it. Which he would have because we don't really keep secrets. I think he mentioned that they'd tried it out once as a fling but they decided that at best they should just stay friends. It hasn't changed their relationship... and even if they were dating after all, Dad is a-okay with that sorta thing."

 

She seemed sincere and Mulder believed her. He’d read the initial reports and none of them seemed the type to get violent, especially since they only ever argued over petty things according to Katie. And his relationship theory was out the window as well since even if they were involved, nobody would have had a problem with it. Damn this family and their niceness and open-mindedness. He would still have to check in with the psychological reports that Dr Callister made of them all at the Halton Medical Center but he didn’t need to read them to know the truth. 

 

Mulder stood up and Scully followed suit. “Thank you for your time, Ms Holt. if you need to talk to us about anything regarding the case… here’s our number.” He pulled a card out from his pocket and gave it to Katie, the phone number for his mobile. It would be the best way to access him.

 

“Thanks. Sure will.” She said and got up herself, leading the two agents out of the living room and towards the front door. The exited the building and the door closed behind them. He hoped that their visit was giving Katie some piece of mind. He looked back at the suburban house once more before unlocking the car and getting in. 

 

“That was pretty successful, wouldn’t you say?” He said cheerfully, looking at Scully as she got into the car’s passenger seat once more. 

 

“It was good. You went a full twenty five minutes without mentioning aliens once. Must be a new record, surely.” She teased, clicking her seatbelt into place. That didn’t exactly take into consideration the hours that he didn’t spend awake… or minutes depending on the nature of the case but he had even surprised himself that he hadn’t mentioned aliens as their final theory. The situation had been begging him to let it slip, Katie probably would have even agreed with them on the theory given some evidence and Mulder’s persuasive charm.

 

“I was going to bring it up we still need to check up on those psychological records at the medical center before we move onto that theory Scully. You’re not getting too excited with the anticipation of investigating aliens?” He shot right back at her with a similarly teasing tone.

 

“Couldn’t be more thrilled, Mulder.” She rolled her eyes as they pulled out of the spot they had parked in in front of the Holt residence and drove off down the street in the direction of Halton’s medical facility with the white brick and nicely kept lawn slowly getting smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror until they turned the corner and went on their way.

 

On their way to finding the truth and a couple of psychology reports.


	5. Theory 3; Mutiny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mulder and Scully meat with the Garrison's psychologist to get the personal files on the crew. Mulder locates a certain young Kogane.

~ ~ ~

 

Mulder and Scully were silent for the short drive from the Holt residence, through Halton and to the Halton Medical Center which, for convenience purposes, was situated closer back towards the Galaxy Garrison. Well, silent aside from the quick pit-stop Mulder made on the side of the road after realising he needed to call Dr Callister about a meeting to collect those files which he was yet to do. And while ‘realising’ would be one way to describe it, ‘Scully ordering him to stop the car and make the phone call before they ended up going in there unannounced and potentially having to wait through Dr Callister’s other scheduled meetings’ would be closer to the truth, or rather simply the truth itself. 

 

Mulder could only imagine how many cadets and staff alike had been injured and sent to the Halton Medical Center. it was probably the reason why they built the medical center in the first place. Cadets injured in flight simulations, sparring or drills… or even hallway punch-ups. Considering Keith Kogane’s record of his obedience or lack thereof, he could easily picture how often the boy got himself into situations between classes that required a hit or two. 

 

Mulder himself had been fairly passive at school. Not the sort of person to pick a fight but his circumstances had required that he learn how to avoid them. He had demons that, thanks to his eidetic memory, enabled him to remember every detail of every confrontation. The confrontations and rumours became less frequent with time but they were a pain to remember nonetheless. Whispers behind his back of alien abduction stories, of his sister’s own abduction. Whether Mulder himself got abducted but was returned back to Earth… If he was some sort of experiment or alien himself. Whether it was aliens at all. Kids in high school, as curious as they were about the world, weren’t as smart as they thought they were. Nor were they as quiet. They had thought their gossip and their rumours had evaded Mulder’s attention. He’d heard them loud and clear. And he’d hated it. 

 

The worst one by far had been that rumour that Mulder had been probed in a more inappropriate way by the aliens, in far more intimate places that his ear or his brain. That one had always been the worst. Some of the kids had taken it upon themselves to outrightly tease him or accuse him of the fact, drawing aliens on the front of his locker, taunting him in the hallway. Then there were the kids who went as far as to use it as evidence to explain why he didn’t date, why he was so meek and acted so traumatised. That he was some sort of victim of alien molestation… as if they knew better. Part of him had studied psychology so that he could prove them wrong. So that even if he wasn’t normal in his brain, he could at least know how to pretend to be. High school was Hell on Earth. It probably still was and Mulder couldn’t be more thankful that he never had to go back. 

 

The complex that was the Halton Medical Center loomed over the car as they pulled up in the hospital’s parking lot, Mulder turning off the ignition. It was decently sized, appropriate for a small town and its surrounding government associations like the Galaxy Garrison. He doubted Area 51 sent any of their hospitalisations to the Halton Medical Center… or at least none of the exciting, possibly extra-terrestrial cases. But then of course, who knew? Maybe the Halton Medical Center had a secret wing that took care of unexplained hospitalisations. Mulder wouldn’t be surprised and at this point, he doubted Scully would be either.

 

He got out of the car, Scully following suit. He locked the car and the two of them headed towards the main entrance to the building. They would be able to get directions to Dr Callister’s office from reception since she was now officially expecting them. The sliding doors opened and the two agents looked around. They could ask general reception but even that desk seemed a little busy. It would be better to get more specific. 

 

“Should we ask at reception or just make our way to the reception at the Psych Ward, Doc?” Mulder turned, tilting his head down slightly to look at Scully.

 

Scully herself glanced around the main reception area. It was quaint. Small gift shop, cafe, reception desk and hallways branching off from there with signs plastered next to each doorway, stating where they lead. “Let’s just go straight to Psychology. I’d assume like most hospitals they have reception areas specific to each wing. It will be more efficient.”

 

“Of course it would be.” Mulder grinned and they turned left, heading down the hall that lead to the elevators. 

 

The Floor Chart stated that the Psych Ward was on the second floor, east wing. Shouldn’t be too difficult to find. The elevator dinged and they entered. It wasn’t crowded. There was only a lady with a dark purple blouse in the corner of the elevator who seemed to be making eyes at the taller of the two agents. The elevator dinged once they reached the second floor and the two agents got out, looking at the signs on the nearby walls. 

 

“Admittance, Offices, Isolation… Scully, have you ever been admitted to a Psych Ward before?” Mulder trailed off, looking at Scully with a strange look on his face. It was one of amusement and genuine curiosity but at the same time, it was a look that held something a little darker. 

 

Scully shook her head. “I visited a couple of times while I was going through my cancer treatment… of course, you probably knew that already since you’ve undoubtedly memorised my file from cover to cover.” Her tone turned slightly more accusatory and Mulder raised his hands in defeat. He wasn’t denying it, he had liked to keep tabs on Scully to make sure that she had been going okay during her treatment. “... what about you?”

 

Mulder nodded. “Once, after Samantha.” He took a slow, deep breath. “Let’s just say that fourteen year old Mulder wasn’t a very happy chappy.” She knew not to press any further into the matter. 

 

She also knew that pertaining to the context… the most likely way, if not the only way Mulder would have had to be kept in a Psych Ward was if he’d tried to kill himself. She felt her heart break a little at the thought. The thought of a young, more vulnerable Mulder, barely more than a child, so absorbed by the despair of losing his sister and the ensuing hurt and chaos that he had drowned in his sorrows, in the mess and pain of it all. Despite the ache she felt in her heart at the thought, she had always known that it had probably happened at some point in his life… it was the reason why she’d been so terrified when they said his ‘death’ was a suicide. And that she’d been so, so relieved when she found out that it hadn’t been him. She willed the thoughts from her mind. Life was shitty enough without thinking about Mulder’s tragic beginning. 

 

They reached the reception desk, Mulder striding up confidently with his ID out and on show. “Agents Mulder and Scully here to see Dr Callister.”

 

The receptionist nodded looking up at Mulder, then at Scully as a smile appeared on her face. She was a dark-haired woman with her hair tied back and a shirt that was a calm blue, matching the surrounding walls. She nodded and looked down the hall. “Turn left and she’s in office number five, her name’s on the door. She’s expecting you.” She smiled brightly at the agents and Mulder smiled back while Scully simply nodded respectfully which caused a slight look of disheartenment on the receptionist's face. 

 

They walked off down the hall that the receptionist had mentioned and saw the door with ‘Dr C. Callister - Garrison Psychology’ on the door. Mulder knocked and a calm voice responded. “Come in.”

 

The two agents did just that, entering the office. It was small but somehow it had the same air as all psychologists’ offices did. The fact was noted by both Mulder and Scully as they picked a chair at the desk across from Dr Callister and sat down. Dr Callister appeared to be in her early fifties with a ring on her finger and her hints of grey hair tucked back. 

 

“I’m Cassandra Callister, I assume you’re the agent I spoke with on the phone?” The woman said, looking at Mulder. 

 

“Yes, I’m Agent Fox Mulder… this is my partner, Agent Dana Scully.” He responded.

 

“Agent Mulder, Scully. I hope you both had pleasant travels here.” She gave them both a warm smile as they nodded before continuing. “You said you wanted the Garrison issued psychological reports for Captain Shirogane, Commander Holt and Matthew Holt? As well as any of my notes if I was willing to give them. For what particular reason would you need those?” She asked carefully, watching them.

 

“We’re doing an inquiry into the crew of The Persephone and their psychological behaviours, habits, trends. Anything that could give us any reason to say that they were involved in some physical altercation during the Kerberos Mission.” Mulder stated. There was a firmness to his voice that suggested that he didn’t want to be questioned on ‘why’. 

 

“Ah, the Kerberos Mission. I have to admit, not many people have come to me for information about the Kerberos Mission. The allure seems to be more directed at the Garrison itself, thank goodness.” She chuckled softly and began typing on her desk computer. “You do realise that by sharing this information, particularly any records of sessions I had with any of the crew would be compromising my code of doctor-patient confidentiality?”

 

Scully interjected. “We’re aware, Ma’am. And we can obtain a warrant if you require.” 

 

Dr Callister simply nodded and the printer near the window began to beep. “Fair enough. I’m printing you all that you need. My files on the crew and any personal notes I added. Seeing as their current status is deceased, I’m sure the dead won’t mind assisting in a good cause.”

 

“Much appreciated, Dr Callister.” Scully nodded. The printer finished soon after and the psychologist grabbed the papers that had been printed, stapling the papers relating to each individual crew member together before handing them to Scully. 

 

“No problem. If you need anything else, contact Billie at reception and she will put you through to me. Good luck.” 

 

The two agents left silently with the files held by Scully as they passed by the reception and headed out of the building, the receptionist, Billie waving to them on their way out. 

“Did you find what you were looking for?” Billie asked, her eyes trained on Scully. 

 

“We got what we came for.” Scully replied, Mulder just standing beside her with a smug look on his face and a knowing look in his eyes. 

 

“Well, here’s the number for my contact if you need to get in touch.” Billie got a piece of paper off her desk with a number already written on it. Scully took it and pocketed it.

 

“Thank you, we will.” Mulder had to admit, Scully did look a little awkward. Seems like she must have also seen the twinkle in the receptionist’s eye, the faint blush on the woman’s cheeks.The agents bid the receptionist a silent farewell and headed down the hall to the elevator. When they got in, Mulder spoke up. 

 

“She was totally coming on to you.”

 

Scully gasped and scowled. “Mulder, that is inappropriate.”

 

He shrugged. “What? You didn’t see the way she was making goo-goo eyes at you? She was flustered, Scully. Flustered.”

 

“No way.” She rolled her eyes, folding her arms across her chest with an incredulous look on her face. A true skeptic. 

 

“Yes way. You can’t even see someone flirting with you right under your nose!” He chuckled, an endearing smile on his face despite the teasing. “Could you believe someone could be so oblivious?” He muttered to himself, still loud enough for Scully. 

 

‘Oh, I could’. Scully said to herself, remembering every meeting with Assistant Director Skinner and the way Mulder acted. Playful, flirtatious… even putting it on a bit to win over travel rights with a bit of charm. Someone so oblivious. Mulder was probably oblivious that he was even doing it himself.

 

The elevator dinged as they reached the ground floor and they got out, heading back out of the medical center and towards their car. They would be able to spend the rest of the afternoon going over the medical records. Well, Scully would spend the rest of the afternoon going over the medical records while Mulder got to write his share of the field report. 

 

~ ~ ~

 

Mulder and Scully were in Mulder’s room with the medical files Dr Callister gave them spread out on the floor. Mulder was sitting on the couch, typing up his part of the field report while Scully sat with a glass of wine, reading through the files. They had to make sure they allocated the work for writing up the field reports because as great of an agent as he was, Mulder was prone to less work and more ‘getting himself into trouble while working on a case’, leaving Scully to write up just about the entire report, only consulting with Mulder to make sure they both had the facts straight. Ever since the incident with the buck-toothed cop and the vampire kid, they agreed to make sure to both write the reports fair and square, consulting with each other as often as they needed. 

 

Mulder enjoyed spending time like this with Scully. No fancy suits and ties. It was just them, comfy pairs of clothes, a little wine or beer, takeout and whatever they were working on. It enabled them to be close, even if they didn’t chat or talk about anything personal, it felt like having a friend over. Of course, Mulder didn’t exactly get many of those opportunities as a kid… having a friend over. Especially after Samantha’s disappearance. He didn’t exactly have any friends after that. And knowing Scully’s history with her father and moving about for his job in the navy, he doubted she rarely got to have friends over as a kid either. 

“Find anything of note, Punk Pebble?” 

 

Scully found herself sighing. “Haven’t used that one in a while.” She had to curse him for letting slip that she went through a punk phase back in high school. Punk rock Scully. The fact had gotten Mulder excited for a whole new range of nicknames and jokes to make. Punk Pebble. Seriously… who did he think he was?

 

“Did you find anything?” He typed for a moment longer before closing the laptop and sliding down onto the floor opposite Scully to look over the notes she had made with the medical files. 

 

“Nothing of note at all. There are your usual stress periods around exams, before the tryouts for who would be the crew of the Persephone. Nothing relating to any stress between them, any fears for the mission. Nothing strong enough to suggest mutiny.” She flicked over her notepad. “And based on their histories, there’s nothing to suggest they would get violent without some sort of outside intervention.”

 

Mulder was grinning smugly. “Thank you for officially ruling out theory number three, my dear Doctor Punk Pebble. You know what that means?” He raised his eyebrows.

 

Scully sighed. “Aliens.”

 

“Bingo!” Mulder winked and grabbed the map that the cadet back at the Garrison, Lance McClain, had drawn on for him off his desk. “You get to relax now… meanwhile I-” he got out the laptop “... am going to spend the next while searching for our troublesome ex-cadet.”

 

If they were going to roll with the ‘aliens’ theory, their best bet was to contact the person who had caused the theory to arise in the first place. Although there was one problem. Young mister Keith Kogane was going to prove hard to reach. His file had no listed address and the number attached to his number had been disconnected a month ago. His only emergency contact had been listed as Captain Shirogane but there was no way they would be able to get in contact with a man who was currently presumed dead in deep space. 

 

So Mulder was left to what would probably be a long night searching through satellite scans of the Nevada Triangle with the range spanning out from lines drawn on a piece of paper by a teenager who could at best guesstimate the whereabouts of the ex-cadet. 

 

Scully nodded and began to put away the medical files that the Garrison psychologist had given them and watched as Mulder began to scroll through the bird’s eye view of nothing but desert and caves. For some sort of sign that Keith was out there. She got up made a cup of coffee for him, may as well since he was so absorbed by looking at frame after frame of desert that he might want something to stay awake with until he finished the job… or until he found anything. She brought the cup over to him and he simply nodded silently. 

 

“I’m going to bed, Mulder. Give me a shout if you need anything.” She rubbed his shoulder reassuringly before gathering her things. 

 

“Thanks, Doc.” He paused for a moment to look up at her with a tired smile which she returned. She left the room, the door closing and leaving Mulder alone with his map and his laptop, searching for a sign. 

 

Searching, searching, searching. Nothing but sand and caves. More sand. More caves. It was hypnotic, dulling. He actually felt sleepy… and for a raging insomniac plagued by nightmares, that was something.

 

He was scrolling for nearly three full hours when he eventually came across two specks. A larger dark brown speck and a smaller, lighter brown speck that he would have missed if he wasn’t paying such close attention. He did the best zoom and enhance that he could with the laptop. The larger speck… it was a shack. A shack in the middle of the desert and it was just off the direct path of where Lance said they headed. 

 

“Gotcha.” He whispered to himself, the thrum of accomplishment in his chest. 

 

It would be a long drive to get there but he was going to find that cadet, Keith Kogane. He was going to find the truth, even if it took him out into the desert. He found himself thinking of the train car in New Mexico, the alien bodies… the explosion, the hunt, the stolen defence force files. A lot of people had died. Hell, he’d nearly died himself. Because he’d gone out into the desert looking for the truth. Looking for aliens. 

 

Why did the truth always lead to the desert?

~ ~ ~


	6. Investigation Recount of Keith Kogane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mulder meets another believer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally the chapter y'all have been waiting for.

~ ~ ~

 

Mulder paused, staring at the image of the blurry brown dots on his screen. The shack… Keith’s shack, surrounded by nothing but miles upon miles of desert. His eyes almost stung with how hard he was looking at them. It had taken him a considerable amount of time and the help of a rather convenient and obscure source to even locate it. Without Lance McClain; the cadet back at the Galaxy Garrison and his vague assistance, he wouldn’t have known where to look in the first place. 

 

It made him wonder. Why would their missing cadet, Keith Kogane, go through all that trouble to hide out in the middle of the desert at some barely traceable location where he wouldn’t be spied upon let alone found if he didn’t have something to hide? Something to keep secret all the way out in that desert. Away from the prying eyes of the military and all who came looking. This was Keith Kogane they were talking about. If he had nothing to gain from being out in the desert, he would have surely left Nevada by now, or at least left Halton to try and start anew somewhere else.

 

A kid who had nothing on his records other than juvenile crime charges and Garrison records. No parents, no place of residence. Who knew if the date of birth he had listed there was even legitimate? It made Mulder’s heart sink a little in his chest. Sure, he himself was suffering the pain of things he’d had and lost, the pain of losing that which was dear to him after all that he’d been through. But Keith? Keith had started with nothing. He probably bore the pain of never having had anything to lose. And according to the people he had talked with, the only thing Keith had possibly had to lose was Captain Shirogane… and he’d lost that too.

 

Either way, a kid like that had nothing to lose and hiding out in the desert to potentially avoid detection contradicted that. It meant that there was something out there after all. Mulder had a feeling that his investigation into Keith Kogane was going to be more than just an interview on what the young cadet believed happened and what his relationship was with the crew of the Persephone. 

 

Mulder got up from his spot on the couch and stared around the inside of the room he was in. His next problem was probably the one that was going to get him into the most trouble. If Keith was hiding something out there, could he trust Scully to investigate it, support it and not write about it in the field report that they would eventually have to hand in at the end of the investigation? He found himself pacing back and forth, back and forth. His feet light on the carpet of the room. He trusted Scully with his life, his crusade, all the ins and outs of his life that she was willing to listen to. She was his touchstone, after all, his one in five billion. But that may not be the case for Keith. After isolating himself for over six months in the desert, would he really be willing to trust one government agent… let alone two? 

 

As much as it was going to make Scully angry and maybe feel a little betrayed, Mulder knew he couldn’t risk bringing her. Two agents on an investigation were too official, too organised. One agent with a passion for the paranormal, for the extra-terrestrial… that would be more honest. It would make it easier for Keith to trust in him whatever he was looking at out in the desert. 

 

Mulder stopped pacing and went back over to his computer, noting down the coordinates of the shack in the desert and matching them up with the map that he had of the Nevada Triangle so that he could get a good idea of where he would be going. He would stay in casual attire but he would keep his FBI identification on him. He grabbed a smaller backpack out of his suitcase and began filling it with supplies; a flashlight, a Geiger counter, snacks, a camera, a couple of ziplock bags, gloves, a brush, paper and pen, spray paint, tape, and a recorder amongst a few other things. He needed to be prepared for anything. 

 

He got the notepad and wrote down a note for Scully. 

‘Hi, Scully. I’ve gone to investigate Keith Kogane on my own. I know I said I’d let you know if I found him but I lied. If I get in trouble, I’ll call you.’ - Mulder

 

He shoved the notepad and pen back into his bag, heading to the door of his room. He opened it quietly and slipped out, managing to avoid making any loud noises that would alert Scully in the next room that he was leaving. He managed to make it out of the apartment block and to their car, turning the key in the ignition and driving off, leaving the unassuming Scully behind.

~ ~ ~

 

Mulder had been on the road for about two hours now and without Scully’s banter next to him, he knew he was getting drowsy. He had stopped off at a small 24-hour gas station in Halton for fuel for his car and for himself before leaving. The woman at the register had given him a funny look but hadn’t said anything in protest to him ordering a large coffee and gas at about 2:00 in the morning. He drank the whole thing before going, or most of it anyway. There was probably still a little of that coffee that remained in the Styrofoam cup in the rental car’s cup holder. He was getting close to the shack, he knew that much. But it was also only about five in the morning and it would be unprofessional, if not just plain rude to conduct an investigation at such an early hour. 

 

He slowed the car to a stop and got out to relieve himself, stretching his legs out and getting the large cup of coffee out of his bladder. He checked his watch and frowned. He would keep driving to get to the shack and maybe take a nap before he started asking any questions. So he stretched a final time before getting back into the car and continuing forward. He probably had about another half hour or so before he got to the shack… he was close. 

 

After another forty-five minutes of driving, a sizeable wooden shack came into view in the car’s headlights as well as a large object with a tarp pulled over it. That must have been the second brown spot on the map Mulder had seen. He let out a small sigh as he pulled up beside the house and shut off the car, relishing in the silence. He cranked the driver’s seat back as far as it could go and lay back, closing his eyes.

~ ~ ~

 

Mulder didn’t get more than maybe two hours of sleep but when he opened his eyes, the morning sun was shining through the windshield, nearly blinding him. He groaned softly and got out of the car, checking his watch. 7:19. That was good. He straightened up his clothes and grabbed his backpack, shutting and locking the car. He made his way to the shack. He paused and lifted up the tarp beside the shed and caught a glimpse of bright red and white painted metal beneath it. Perhaps a motorbike of some sort. He continued to the front of the shack, pausing for a moment before knocking on the door, his knuckles hitting against the hard dusty wood of the door.

 

It was a while before Mulder heard anything in response. He knocked again, slow and steady as if to confirm that it wasn’t some weird hallucination. He knew that spending six months alone in the desert would probably be hard on the mind like that. Something crashed and there was a groan and some shuffling about before the door was finally opened. In front of Mulder stood a shorter young man with a mess of black hair that trailed down to his shoulder and bangs that obscured his forehead. He wore a plain black t-shirt and black pants that were marked with streaks of dust from the desert. The boy’s skin was pale, despite living in the middle of the desert and he looked somewhat gaunt, dark circles under his eyes but still keeping the lean muscle of a Galaxy Garrison cadet. Mulder saw hurt in those eyes. And unease.

 

“Who are you and what do you want?” Keith’s voice was raspy. It was probably the time he’d spoken in a while. 

 

Mulder took a small breath, fishing his identification out of the back pocket of his jeans and showing it to the young man. “My name is Agent Mulder, I work for the FBI. I want to talk with you about the Kerberos Mission.” He looked down at the ex-cadet, hoping that the kid would be okay with talking with him.

 

Keith gave Mulder a confused look and pursed his lips. “What’s the FBI doing revisiting a case that was closed months ago? A case that the Galaxy Garrison closed months ago?” He folded his arms across his chest, the agent at the door keeping his own by his side. 

 

Mulder lightly shook his head, his hazel eyes alight. He needed to convince Keith now that he should be listened to. ”They closed the case because they couldn't be bothered poking holes in the Galaxy Garrison's official statement. Because people aren’t supposed to question cases that have been resolved internally… especially by the military of all people. But you and I both know that no amount of press releases and half-hearted condolences can deny the truth." He let the statement sink in, watching the slight relaxation of Keith’s posture before gesturing to the door. “Can I come in?”

 

The dark haired boy slowly nodded, opening the door wider so that Mulder could follow him in. Mulder nodded in silent gratitude and entered the shack, looking around. The place was decent sized for a shack in the desert, but it could also be described in one word; messy. It had a small kitchen, bathroom and a couch against the back wall, presumably as a bed with the blanket and cushions that lay on it. There was a small coffee table with files, drawings and photos strewn across it, some of them fallen onto the floor. Across from the couch, there was a cork board on the wall, adorned with more photos, sticky notes, string… the whole shebang. It reminded him of his own office when he was neck-deep in an investigation like this, in hopes of seeing any and all of the connections between occurrences, victims and killers in order to solve his cases. 

 

Keith was watching as the agent looked around the room, looking at the unkept mess, his cork board. His heart and soul poured into investigating what happened to the crew of the Persephone… to Shiro. It was all there in his notes, his shack. “I didn’t think anybody cared enough about the truth.”

 

Mulder shrugged his shoulders slightly. “I do. I always have.” He walked over to the corkboard on the ex-cadet’s wall and looked at it, at the photos and the notes. He gestured to it with a small smile on his face. “You’d make a good agent.” 

 

Keith sat down on the side of the couch, moving the piles of drawings and photos and notes to the coffee table. He paused to look up at Mulder with a small smile creeping up onto his wearied face. “Thanks. Uh… take a seat, I guess.” Mulder made his own way over to the couch and took a seat, placing his backpack down beside him. He fished his recorder out from the bottom and placed it nearer to the top, letting it record.

 

Keith waited a moment before speaking up again. “How did you even find me?”

 

Mulder chuckled softly and rubbed the nape of his neck, fishing the map that Lance McClain had given him out of his backpack and handing it to Keith. “With this, the vague directions from a cadet back at the Garrison, and searching through several hours worth of satellite footage… oh, the kid who gave this to me said he knew you? Tall… tan skin, lanky?”

 

That caused Keith’s eyes to widen a little and he smiled sadly. “Lance.” The lanky cadet had been annoying and disruptive, insisting that he was Keith’s rival and that he was going to be the best pilot ever. But regardless of that, the boy had made Keith’s time at the Garrison fun, exciting, different than it would have been without the constant teasing and laughter. 

 

Mulder watched as a few memories danced across Keith’s eyes. “He said that he misses you.” He said softly, giving Keith a moment. The cadet looked happy, like the fact that Lance missing him meant something good to him. He was glad to have helped that happen. Maybe Keith would get back in touch with Lance but who knew? He cleared his throat and began to speak once more. “At the start of my investigation, I had four theories as to what happened on the Kerberos Mission. Over the course of merely two days, I’ve narrowed that down to one.”

 

Keith nodded as a gesture for Mulder to continue with what he was saying. As eager as he was to hear these theories, he had an inkling of an idea of what the last one was going to be. 

 

“... Although it was officially stated as a pilot error, I highly doubt that’s the case. With Captain Shirogane holding the title of ‘the best pilot to ever fly for the Garrison’, and the fact that it would have been easier to believe a craft malfunction.” Mulder spared a glance at Keith to make sure that he was following along. He was. “Would that be true?”

 

Mulder found Keith scowling at that first theory. "Of course it’s true. Wait I might still..." the younger of the two got up and began looking around. Underneath the coffee table, he found the box labelled 'Shirogane'. Blowing off some dust Keith opened it up. "The Garrison gave me all of this because he had no family" Keith mumbled browsing through some papers before finding the correct notebook. "These are his notes. We studied for months on end mapping out the route. The plans for every single movement he'd have to make up there. From waking up that morning to stepping off months later" Keith told him. The binder was neat, organized. Then there was a large poster all folded up in the side pockets with the solar system and coloured markings of the path and how far he was going to get every day. 

 

Mulder flicked through the binder, his eyes flicking from page to page, looking at each note and diagram. It was thorough and comprehensive and from what he already knew about the pilot from his case file, there was no way that someone like this could have caused a pilot error. He nodded and placed the binder aside. "Theory number two was that the craft itself failed either in transit or on Kerberos. But the pre-launch survey was clean and even if that had happened, they had one of their best engineers on board, Matthew Holt. But I don't need to call Mr Holt's skills into question because I highly doubt the Galaxy Garrison would blame a systems failure on Captain Shirogane.”

 

Keith nodded in agreement, remaining quiet. It was obvious that he agreed, in fact, he’d probably been through these theories himself already.

 

“My next theory after that was mutiny but after speaking with Katie Holt and looking at the crew’s psychological records from their time at the Garrison, there is no sign of any sort of violent behaviour or reason for them to engage in a physical altercation.” Mulder looked at Keith for confirmation. 

 

The boy nodded once more. “Shiro, despite his size… was probably one of the gentlest people I knew. And the Holts weren’t even close to being violent like me. I was probably the rowdiest. So… your theories are wrong.” He looked up at Mulder with a challenging gaze in his eyes. It was certainly more of a spark than he’d had when he first answered the door.

 

Mulder found himself grinning. “Oh, they weren’t necessarily my theories. My theory was that they were abducted by aliens on Kerberos.” He paused, somewhat glad that Keith hadn’t had an adverse reaction to the statement. “It wouldn't be outlandish since it's so far away from the core of our solar system and completely unexplored terrain. It would explain the inactivity on the computer's logs.”

 

Keith was still for a moment, letting the statement sink in. It made sense. The inactivity, the lousy cover-up. Everything. “I have something to show you. Something that could make your case.” 

 

He got up and walked over to the corkboard on his wall, gesturing for Mulder to follow. He pulled down some of the photos off the wall and handed them to Mulder, along with a few pieces of paper with messily scrawled writing on it. Pictographs and symbols that Mulder had never encountered before inscribed on what looked like a cave wall.

 

These weren’t of Earthen origin. 

 

These were alien.


	7. Theory 4; Aliens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mulder and Keith explore the possibility that they're part of a grander scheme with only fate to guide them into an awaiting intergalactic war. That and Mulder's not as straight as he thought he was.

~ ~ ~

Mulder was silent, staring at the photographs in his hands. This was like nothing he had ever seen. Well, sure he had seen hieroglyphs and other types of pictographs before but nothing like this. They ranged from strange markings and human-like figures to variations of the same mammalian design that looked strikingly like a lion. The markings varied from primitive and somewhat scraggly and hesitant in the cave walls to looking too precise and linear as if they were depicting something robotic… otherworldly. He probably wouldn’t have put them as having been created by the same civilisation, let alone the same person. 

 

Nonetheless, they sent his heart racing. Alien symbols on the inside of some cave wall in the middle of Nowhere, Nevada that could prove the existence of extraterrestrial life that had either been here thousands of years before or were yet to come. 

 

“What are these? And how did you find them?” Mulder managed after a while, still holding the photographs in his hands as he looked at the young man before him with a newfound respect. Who wouldn’t, considering what this kid had found?

 

Keith had his arms folded across his chest when he replied. “It’s a long story and none of it makes too much sense but… you might wanna sit down.”

 

Mulder nodded and walked back over to the couch, placing the photos in his lap, not wanting to put them down somewhere lest they disappeared from his sight forever like all the other evidence of aliens that he’d come across over the years he’d spent working on the X-Files. Keith followed suit and took a seat beside him. 

 

“After I got booted from the Garrison, I took off into the desert.” Keith began. There was something about his posture, Mulder noted, that told him that he was sharing something personal. That there was hurt lying beneath the layers of excitement and mystery. “Shiro and I found this shack when we went exploring on the hoverbike. We decided to turn it into a house of sorts. I came back here… I didn’t exactly have anywhere else.

 

“After a while of being here, I began to explore for myself. I know this probably sounds weird but I felt this energy… something was drawing me out into the desert, out to this outcropping of boulders further out, telling me to search. I camped out there for a while and I found this cave system. It was filled with markings. I came back here, grabbed my camera, my stuff and took photos of them. I’ve been trying to figure out what they mean ever since.”

 

Mulder nodded, looking back down at the photographs. He finally gained the courage to release them from his grasp and he laid them out on the coffee table, well, on what little space there was on the coffee table. “Have you had much success? Finding out what they mean?” 

 

Keith simply shrugged his shoulders, shuffling the photos around so that they were a little more grouped. “There are quite a few of them that are random, that I couldn’t put any sort of meaning to. But these ones?” He pointed to one of the groups. “They all tell a slightly different story about a Blue Lion. That much is obvious.” He chuckled softly.

 

That much was obvious indeed. Seems Mulder was right about the striking resemblance the carvings had to a lion. One of the older, more scrawly looking carvings was even coloured with some sort of blue pigment. The Blue Lion. He wondered what that meant. Was it some sort of lion-like species of aliens that resembled a lion? Was it a craft of some kind that bore a resemblance to the mammal? 

 

Keith began to speak again. “After staring at them for a little while longer I found that the later ones share clues of some event, some arrival happening.” He pointed to the other group of photos and lay them out like a story.

 

The first was an image of the blue lion resting on top of some rock that looked like an older Earth, the continents were in slightly different positions but it did look like their home planet. The next was a circle of large markings that were above one smaller triangular one and a being inside of it. The image after that was that of four beings helping another that was draped across their shoulders. A few symbols later and the five figures were together, another few and there were two figures standing together with their hands raised slightly in front of a picture of the seated Blue Lion. The last image was of the Blue Lion in movement as if running towards the final marking, a precisely carved image of a robot with a missing leg.

 

Mulder looked over at Keith. “So what it looks like, is that… an alien is going to come down from space, meet up with four others and then take the Blue Lion, wherever it is, back into space to form some sort of giant robot?”

 

Keith nodded and spoke softly. “Yeah. That’s what it looks like.” 

 

Mulder glanced around for a moment. “Could you take me to that cave? To the markings?”

 

Keith shrugged his shoulders with a small smile on his face, noting the excitement in the agent’s eyes. “Well, it’s not exactly like I’ve got anything better to do. We can go now if you have everything you need.” He stood up, Mulder following suit.

 

“Yeah. Everything I’d need is in my bag.” He grabbed his backpack off the ground beside the couch and slung it over his shoulder. 

 

“Everything except these.” Keith grabbed a pair of what looked like clear ski-goggles off the coat hook near the door. “Protection from the sand.”

 

Mulder took the pair Keith offered to him. There was a name on the back of the band. S. Shirogane. He immediately felt a sort of twinge. It was oddly taboo to be wearing something that belonged to someone missing, presumed dead. 

 

Keith opened the door to the shack and exited, Mulder following suit. He had barely made it three steps out the door before he felt a buzzing in his pocket. His phone? Ringing all the way out here? Must be a lucky choice of positioning for coverage. He opened his phone and held it to his ear. “Mulder.”

 

“Mulder where the hell are you? I’ve got Scully on the other line sounding like a disappointed mother and frankly, I am disappointed that you would leave her in bum-fuck Nevada to investigate a lead… by yourself… without your partner… against protocol!” The gravelly voice of Assistant Director Skinner would have been so much nicer to listen to had it not been dripping with something bordering on rage with a hint of disappointment. Mulder caught himself mid-sigh.

 

“Well Sir, when have you known me to follow protocol?” Mulder glanced over at Keith and put his hand over the microphone, mouthing ‘I’ll be a minute’. Keith nodded in response and took to undoing the tarp that was draped over their to-be mode of transportation.

 

“Mulder… this is serious.” Skinner sighed audibly. Mulder could practically hear him pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes just from over the phone.

 

“Sir, I’m aware of that. It’s just that Kogane wouldn’t have hidden away someplace hard to find if he didn’t have something to hide. If he hadn’t found something. He lives for finding Captain Shirogane, same as me with Samantha.” He paused. “I need you to understand that it would seem too suspicious to him if the two of us had come together, following protocol and asking the same questions as everybody else already has. He needs someone to trust him, someone to understand. I’ll report what I can but there’s more to this than I thought, Sir.”

 

There was silence on the line for a moment before the Assistant Director spoke up. “Just… Just don’t get yourself killed out there, Mulder. Because we won’t be able to come and get you. You’re on your own.” Skinner muttered, somewhat defeatedly. “I’ll speak to you about it when you get back.”

 

“You make it sound like a date, Sir.” Mulder raised an eyebrow, feeling slightly flushed in the face. How did he let that slip out of his mouth? Never mind, play it off. 

 

“Date or not, still expect to get reamed out.” Skinner retorted and hung up the phone, leaving Mulder standing outside Keith’s shack with wide eyes, pink-tinged cheeks and the echo of Skinner’s gravelly purr in his brain. Seems like the Assistant Director had been in a playful mood too. Who woulda thunk it?

 

Mulder pocketed his phone and headed over to Keith, who was leaning against a large red and white vehicle that resembled a hybrid of a motorbike and a helicopter. The ex-cadet was smirking, his eyebrows raised and his arms folded across his chest. “It’s a hoverbike. Hop on.”

 

Mulder pulled his backpack over both shoulders and pulled the goggles down over his eyes as he hopped onto the hoverbike. “The Garrison has this sort of technology? That’s incredible.” He grinned, running his hand over the smooth metal.

 

Keith hopped onto the front and pulled his own goggles down. “It’s Garrison issue but I made a few of my own modifications. Mostly for speed and manoeuvrability. And the paint job… but yeah, Garrison technology.” He revved the engine and the vehicle lifted off the ground, causing Mulder to yelp in surprise at the sensation and Keith to chuckle. “Hold on tight, Mr Mulder.”

 

Mulder leaned forward and held onto Keith as they began to move, picking up speed like lightning through a stormy night. He immediately felt grateful for the goggles too but the speed felt good. Wind whipping through his hair and the breeze on his face. It was freedom, the closest thing to flying. He could understand why Keith would want to take this thing everywhere. 

 

“So who were you calling back there?” Keith finally asked. There was something in his voice that reminded Mulder of teenage girls when they were looking to hear some gossip. Or the ladies who hung around the water cooler at the Hoover Building, but they were essentially grown-up versions of the same thing. 

 

“My boss.” Mulder replied.

 

“Oh.” Keith sounded slightly less enthusiastic, disappointed even?

 

“Why? Were you expecting something else?” 

 

“Well, you sounded pretty flirtatious over the phone. I thought it was your girlfriend or something. Especially with how pink you were afterwards… you were nearly the same colour as my bike.” He chuckled cheekily and Mulder shoved his shoulder. 

 

“It’s not like that. He just made an innuendo and it took me by surprise.” He rolled his eyes and glanced at the open desert that was whizzing past him.

 

“Mhm. Sure. Your secret’s safe with me, Mr Mulder.” Keith grinned to himself.

 

Did Keith think that he had a thing for the Assistant Director? Apparently so. Skinner wasn’t exactly unattractive, per say. By he was good looking. Buff, muscular upper body with lean legs and strong arms. Strong Dorito shape going, much unlike his own long and lanky look. That commanding presence he had that somehow asserted him as the ‘alpha male’ wherever he went. Sure he didn’t have a full head of hair but he had a nice button nose, deep brown eyes, that gravelly purr of a voice and a pair of lips that-... woah there Mulder. Don’t get ahead of yourself. Just because this smart-ass kid thinks he’s got it worked out, doesn’t mean he does. 

 

They continued to drive out until they reached the looming outcropping of red-rock boulders that Keith had spoken about earlier. The hoverbike slowed to a stop, the dust settling around them as Keith hopped off the bike. They were parked at the entrance to a cave, presumably the same one that Keith had found those markings in. Mulder was tingling with excitement, the prospect of finding real evidence of aliens that he could photograph and hopefully keep for himself for as long as possible. Until someone inevitably breaks into his apartment and conveniently removes the evidence.

 

Mulder hopped off and followed Keith up towards the cave, pulling the goggles down off his face so that they rested around his neck. They weren’t in the cave for long before Mulder caught sight of the markings. They were everywhere… on the ceiling, on the walls. Not on the floor but they may as well have been. 

 

Frankly, he was awestruck by it all. His feet were moving of their own accord, step by step as he took in every line, every detail. Every story even though he had very little understanding of what they could possibly mean. He swung his backpack off his shoulder and let it hit the cave floor. He unzipped it, rummaging through until he got out the brush, the camera and the notepad he brought. He wanted to get every detail since he didn’t know if he was ever going to be able to find this place again and he hardly ever got the opportunity to spend this much time with objects of extraterrestrial origin.

 

Mulder glanced over his shoulder at Keith. “You don’t mind if I take my own photos and notes about these markings do you?” He thought he may as well ask since Keith was the one who discovered them. 

 

Keith shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. “Not at all. Knock yourself out.” The ex-cadet the proceeded to recline against the side of the cave wall with his arms folded across his chest, watching as Mulder began to brush off some of the dirt from the markings and photograph them. 

 

Click. Click. Brush brush. Click. Mulder went about his business photographing, taking notes and even pulling out some of the zip-lock bags from his backpack to take some dirt samples. He wanted to be as thorough as possible. After about an hour or so he felt satisfied that he’d gotten everything so he pulled himself back so that he could sit beside Keith who had gone from standing, leaning against the cave wall to sitting against it to watch the agent work. 

 

“So,” Keith began, glancing over at Mulder who had a very satisfied and still awe-struck look on his face. “What do you think all of this means? All of these marks?” He raised a leather-clad hand to gesture to the markings around them.

 

Mulder leaned his head back against the wall. “I’m not really sure but there are a lot of those circular markings towards the start and something about them reminds me of explosions but that’s mostly speculation.” He smiled softly. “Maybe up there, whatever colony or species made these markings were involved in some universal war and they sought refuge here. The battle for planets and star systems and ultimately the entire universe, us included. Perhaps they’re still up there, still fighting, waiting for the resurrection of this Blue Lion to rejoin the fight.”

 

Keith snorted. “Sounds like the plot to some science fiction movie.” 

 

Mulder smiled. “What I do for a living sounds like a plot for some science fiction movie but here we are, chasing aliens. Maybe Earth isn’t as close to the center of the universe as we’d previously thought. Perhaps we are some distant pocket in the outer quadrants. If the Blue Lion is rooting for the good guys, maybe we’re unconquered territory.”

 

Keith’s expression turned slightly more serious. “So what if there’s a fight for the universe going on outside our pocket of the universe? What happens when they bring the fight to us? Sure we have the technology to fight off incoming meteorites and other unwanted space junk that gets past the moon but we don’t have the technology to fight off an alien invasion. You can see the carvings… the Blue Lion is part of a bigger being. Maybe that’s what they’re after.”

 

Mulder shook his head. “Maybe it’s a way to arm Earth, to bring them into the fight with the artillery and technology to do so… but I don’t think aliens are that selfless.”

 

“Maybe they would be if they were desperate… y’know. If the people the Blue Lion belongs to are on the losing side.” Keith shrugged his shoulders and stared at the markings along the cave wall, the ones depicting the ‘arrival’. “Maybe that’s what the arrival is for… maybe that’s the time when they recruit us to join them.”

 

Mulder nodded. “Maybe.” It wasn’t an unlikely possibility. He’d tackled alien invasion before except they had been working with the government to orchestrate a more inconspicuous, facilitated invasion and colonisation of Earth. But that would mean that there were species out in the universe that was not only engaged in a fully-fledged intergalactic war... but were prophesied to be bringing that war to Earth someday. “But until that arrival day comes, we’re powerless, sitting ducks in the dark as that war rages on.”

 

Keith nodded in return. “Then what of Kerberos? Did they send the crew of the Kerberos to their doom up there? Did we send them into a war zone that they weren’t ready for?”

 

Mulder paused. For a brief moment there, he had forgotten about the Kerberos mission having been too busy gobbling up the potential existence of extraterrestrial life. If the theory about intergalactic warfare was true then it made sense that the crew of the Kerberos mission would have just disappeared. They had probably entered the fringe of the war zone and been abducted on the spot. “It would make sense.” 

 

Keith hung his head low and began to pull his knees close to his chest. “It would… but it also means that there’s a smaller chance of them even being alive. Shiro, Sam and Matt…” He didn’t finish. Mulder didn’t need him to know what he was going to say. 

 

Mulder reached out a hand and gently rubbed Keith’s shoulder. “Even if we don’t find them, hold on to the idea that you can find out what happened to them.” He offered the boy a soft, sympathetic smile. “The truth is out there, Keith… and I have a feeling you’re gonna be the one to find it.”

 

Keith nodded and took a deep breath, getting to his feet. “We should head back if you’re done here.”

 

“I guess we should. I assume you’re driving?” Mulder smiled and picked up his bag, slinging it over his shoulder as he walked with Keith to the entrance of the cave. 

 

Keith scoffed. “Not unless you’ve learned how to pilot a hoverbike in the last hour or so.” A comment at which Mulder simply laughed and shook his head as they headed out of the cave and towards Keith’s hoverbike. He hopped on the back and Keith got on the front, revving the engine and lifting them up off the ground and back out towards the shack. 

 

They were driving for a little while before Keith spoke up once more. “So… are you going to tell your boss about what you found out here? The carvings? The intergalactic war? The location of the cave?”

 

Mulder shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not really sure yet. He’s a believer so I can tell him about the possibility of a war based on the markings I found but I’m planning to leave both your location and the location of the cave off record… for your safety as well as mine. There are some people in high places who would probably benefit from seeing your shack burned to the ground and that cave blown to a hundred thousand pieces.”

 

Keith nodded solemnly. He probably despised the idea of disappeared evidence as much as Mulder. All the hard work he’d put into finding the truth, finding Captain Shirogane, blown to pieces or burnt beyond return. 

 

They eventually got back to Keith’s shack. It was only around midday too so that left plenty of time for Mulder get back to Scully and not have to drive in the night this time. Keith parked the hoverbike and walked over to Mulder who was standing by the car he’d brought up with him. 

 

“Thanks,” He said softly, wiping some dust off his hands and onto his jeans. “For coming out here… for believing. For hopefully not ratting out my location and getting my shack burned down.”

 

Mulder laughed softly and placed a reassuring hand on Keith’s shoulder. “Don’t worry Mr Kogane, your secret’s safe with me.” It was an odd irony, throwing Keith’s earlier words back at him but the gesture seemed to make the young man smile a smile that lit up those oddly coloured eyes of his. He was looking more lively than he had when Mulder first arrived, the company must have been good for him. 

 

Keith rolled his eyes and shooed him off. Mulder turned and got into the car, doing a U-turn before heading back in the direction that he’d come in. Back towards civilisation and responsibility and… Scully!

 

What was he going to tell Scully?

~ ~ ~


	8. Insufficient Evidence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scully marks down the case as having 'insufficient evidence' and Skinner is owed an explanation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait. School got hectic and I haven't had a break until now. I apologise if this is badly written, it was just a boring chapter to write.

~ ~ ~

 

It was just before two in the afternoon by the time the residential town of Halton came into view on the horizon. Mulder had spent the whole nearly three-hour drive thinking about what he had found… what Keith had shown him. That aliens had been here before and had left something on Earth, a key or a weapon or some form of technology that would assist Earth in its integration and involvement in an ongoing universal war. And that someday, maybe someday soon… they were going to return and initiate that integration. 

 

He had dealt with alien invasion before but this was something far more violent and probably had nothing to do with their government and the shadows that it worked in, the secrets, lies and conspiracies that he had spent the better part of his time at the FBI investigating. This could upend their lives, plunge the world into an apocalypse like state, throw the world into chaos beyond recovery…- Woah there Mulder, slow down with the imagery of foreboding death and destruction. He didn’t even know if that fight was going to be brought to Earth. Maybe only a select few would go up into space and fight the good fight. 

 

He pulled up to the apartment building that he and Scully were staying in and turned off the engine, walking up to the rooms. He felt the same feeling as when he’d run off to investigate leads by himself all the other times. The feeling like this was a child’s last walk of freedom before getting the punishment of being naughty. He had barely let his knuckles connect with the wooden door before Scully answered with a prominent scowl on her face. 

 

“I have a lot to tell you… and show you.” Mulder said finally and Scully moved out of the doorway to let him through. 

 

He walked in and pulled his backpack off his shoulder, planting it on the floor and unzipping it. Scully walked past him and sat down on the couch, watching him. He pulled out the photographs, dirt samples, rubbings… everything he had collected and photographed at the cave. All of his evidence was laid out on the coffee table. “What are these?” Scully asked softly, picking up one of the photographs.

 

“These are ancient markings found inside a cave near where I found Keith. Alien pictographs depicting the arrival of what Keith believes to be an alien craft or machine possibly hundreds, if not thousands of years ago. A Blue Lion.” He paused to show her the corresponding pictures of the mechanical looking lion. “This Blue Lion has been on Earth and will continue to stay here until the arrival of an alien or perhaps the return of them to take four people from Earth and into space where the Blue Lion will become merely one part in some sort of greater design.” Mulder pulled out the picture of the marking that looked like a robot.

 

Scully’s blue eyes were wide, she was still processing the information. It was a lot to process, especially for someone as sceptical as her. “Some greater design… for what?”

 

“War. Perhaps one that spans most of the unknown universe.” Mulder put forward the images of the smaller, circular designs. “Keith and I were unsure of what these meant but based on speculation and the greater context, they could be explosions.”

 

Scully scoffed and raised an eyebrow. It was if she had turned into the physical embodiment of incredulity. “Speculation and the greater context? Skinner’s gonna love to read that in our report. On the topic of that… what does this have to do with Kerberos and your alien abduction theory?”

 

“Well, I believe that when the crew of the Persephone got sent all the way out to Kerberos, they were basically put in the line of fire. They were at best either obliterated on sight or were abducted and kept as ‘political prisoners’ of sorts. Either way, if they’re not dead… they’re probably not having too great a time.” Mulder looked back over at Scully, hoping that she was at least catching on to the possibility of what happened. 

 

She took a deep breath. “So you’re telling me that the best information you have on what happened to the Kerberos Mission is speculation based off of what you claim are alien pictographs found in the dead center of Nowhere, Nevada and were semi-translated by a potentially emotionally compromised boy who has been hiding out in the desert by himself for god knows how long? Is that what you’re telling me to put in my report?”

 

Mulder frowned and folded his arms across his chest, pouting slightly. “Well… it sounds stupid when you put it like that.” He probably looked childish like that but it was the only thing he could do, all things considered.

 

“Forget stupid, it’s inadmissible! Our conclusions for this case will be considered invalid due to insufficient evidence, Mulder! We can’t use this.”

 

“It doesn’t matter if it’s admissible or not! It matters whether or not you believe that someday, maybe someday soon, whatever fight that’s going on up there is going to be brought to us. Because that’s the reality that the Persephone’s crew had to face when they got abducted on Kerberos and it’s the reality that we have to face now too, that we have to prepare ourselves for.” Mulder threw his hands up in the air, staring at Scully intently. He knew that she’d know he was serious about this. He was serious about most things, contrary to popular belief. 

 

“Okay.” She said, taking a deep breath. “We… we’ll sort this out once we get back to D.C, alright?” Scully sighed once more, knowing that she was fighting a battle neither of them could win considering how passionate about their beliefs they both were. “I can book the flights now so that we have time to pack. We should be back in D.C before the evening.”

 

“Back in time to book a lecture with Skinner, you mean.” Mulder chuckled, knowing that their boss would be waiting back in the Hoover building with the promise of giving him a thorough talking to for leaving Scully on her own in Halton.

 

“That and in time to give him my preliminary notes… which I finished while you were out in the middle of nowhere. But take it easy with the intergalactic war theories, he’s probably going to be annoyed enough as it is.”

 

He let out a defeated sigh and disappeared back into his own room, looking around. There wasn’t exactly much for him to pack since he’d packed most of it up last night on his trip to meet Keith but he knew Scully usually brought a lot with her. One time on one of their longer trips, she had brought a face-mask kit and had scared the crap out of Mulder when she emerged from their shared bathroom late that night with a green face. He never ended up getting her back for that.

 

He got changed into his suit so that he would be ‘lecture-appropriate’ when he arrived back in D.C, grabbed the bag he had brought with him off the bed and waited outside Scully’s room as she packed up her own belongings. They were fortunate to catch the lady who had rented them the rooms for their stay in Halton and they returned the keys, earning a tired smile from the woman who was probably doing the cleaning rounds. 

 

The two agents got into the rental car and drove their way back out to the airport to get the first plane back to D.C, fortunately with no screaming babies on board this time around. It was the afternoon so the flight was actually relatively quiet, giving time for Mulder to dwell more on what he had seen and what he was going to do about evading the Assistant Director’s anger and disappointment at yet another case that would read like fiction. And how Scully was probably going to leave out the photographic evidence from the official report… but perhaps that was for the better. Who knew what would ensue if people found the existence of extraterrestrials in that cave? The consortium would have their filthy white-collar hands all over it the moment the word got out. The report would be blacked out and nobody would ever hear from Keith Kogane again… and to have someone so young disappeared was wrong. Sure Krycek and his astonishing lack of morality would probably be fine with it but not him. Not now that the kid trusted him.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Getting out of the airport took some time and the security checks had thought something of Mulder’s dirt sample collection but he assured them that it was nothing to worry about. Man, the things using his badge could do. But from there onwards, it wasn’t too long a drive before he felt familiar concrete beneath his feet and was looking up at the greyish building and everyone else going about their greyish, mundane business in their greyish suits. And one particular blading man in a greyish suit was probably half an hour away from kicking his ass.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Waiting in the Assistant Director’s office again felt like deja vu… it always did. It was like he had been conditioned to feel a certain level of anxiety every time he sat down on the black couch with the faint tapping of his secretary typing away on her computer which he timed the tapping of his own leg to after some time. Conditioned in preparation for the judgement, scolding and often disappointment that came from within that office, despite the approvals of nearly every 302 he sent in. It was probably an X-File in itself, why Skinner continued to let them attempt case after case, spending a significant amount over their budget in damages, medical bills, rental cars and supplies. Anyone in their right mind should have started saying no by now… no to all the damage they cause and all the dust they stir up while doing it. Why not Skinner then? Was he simply sick of the way Mulder refused to back down and how he practically threw a tantrum every time he didn’t get his way, sulking when he was refused for the final time or simply disregarding the orders altogether? Well, the question seemed to answer itself. 

 

But then why would Skinner speak with him like that over the phone? Not only had he taken his flirting in stride but the older man had actually returned it? The thought of it still made Mulder feel just as confused and fuzzy as it had when it had first occurred when Mulder had first thought about it in depth as he was speeding across the Nevada desert on the back of Keith Kogane’s motorbike. Did he actually have a thing for the Assistant Director after all? And if so, what would he even do with that information? It wasn’t like he could just waltz into his office and lay on the desk with a rose in his mouth. He was neither that ballsy, not that clichéd, especially not working for the FBI. They would become the talk of the tearoom if anything ever happened. 

 

He glanced to his side and caught Scully staring at him. “What?” He asked, glancing at the door and then back at Scully. 

 

“You’re more nervous than usual. Something on your mind?” Scully tilted her head gently, the concern clear in her eyes. She was always concerned for Mulder and that mind of his. Especially with what he had told her while they were at the psychiatric ward in Halton. He seemed genuinely concerned about the prospect of yet another alien invasion, one that had been prophesied to have been coming for years but he was more on edge about it than he should have otherwise been. Had Skinner said something to him when Scully asked him to call Mulder earlier that morning? She would ask him after the meeting. 

 

“Mulder, Scully… you can go in now.” Kim said, causing Mulder to practically jump to his feet and head to the door, Scully following him into the office. The afternoon light was filtering through the blinds behind Skinner, who was sitting at his desk with his glasses, reading over what Scully assumed was the report that she had written while they were on the flight back to D.C. With most of it having been written up the night before, she had been able to get it done in no time at all… no thanks to Mulder. The two agents took their respective seats on the other side of the desk.

 

Skinner took a slow breath and began to speak. “It is so far unclear what Keith Kogane showed Special Agent Mulder in his investigation, however, whatever it was... “ He glanced up at Scully, then at Mulder. “... it somehow warranted enough secrecy to leave the details undisclosed from this report entry. Through pure speculation, I believe that Keith Kogane may have shown Special Agent Mulder evidence of extraterrestrial life on this planet and possibly evidence that the crew of the ‘Persephone’ were abducted by alien life forms, although this cannot be proven due to insufficient evidence.” He sighed and closed the report, a stern look on his face as he turned to Mulder. 

 

“Sir-...” Mulder began, already trying to justify himself, or rather, Scully’s report.

 

“I assume that you do, in fact, have some sort of evidence to base these spineless accusations on. Because what you’re saying to me is that the crew of the Persephone were abducted by aliens but you have insufficient evidence to back up these claims.” He stated, glaring mostly at Mulder as he removed his glasses than at Scully. 

 

“Sir, I do have evidence… but if I put it in the official report the consortium and that damned Cancer Man will be after it in no time at all. They’ll destroy everything and who knows what will happen to Keith!” Mulder clenched his jaw. “Hell, the Cancerman would probably try and coax him into joining him!”

 

Scully was silent until the end of Mulder’s rant. What he was saying was true but Skinner needed to see that evidence and they trusted Skinner to keep this off record. How many times had the man saved their asses after all? “Mulder has photographs.” She said softly. 

 

Skinner’s eyebrow rose in interest, his deep brown-eyed gaze returning to Mulder. “Of what? An extraterrestrial biological entity?”

 

Mulder shook his head. “Of carvings added to by several different civilisations, all telling the same story of what I believe to be an intergalactic war that’s being raged just outside of our solar system. And that some alien race has left a vessel here on Earth… maybe even part of a weapon, presumably for our later recruitment in.” He pulled out the photographs. The same ones he’d shown Scully and laid them out on the desk in front of the Assistant Director. The explosions. The Blue Lion. The lone visitor who comes to reclaim the Blue Lion and the four from Earth who assumedly return with the visitor.

 

Skinner was silent for a moment as he took in the photographs, the story they told… the truth. “Do you know when this… arrival is said to happen?” 

 

Mulder shook his head. “Not from what I was able to gather in the cave, Sir. It could be decades, it could be centuries.”

 

The room was silent once more. “And what of Captain Shirogane and the rest of the crew?”

 

Mulder nodded for Scully to go ahead. She hadn’t said much in terms of how their case had ended up going since Mulder had ditched her but she knew what he had told her. 

 

“We assume that when they were sent so far out into the solar system that they were caught in the crossfire of this intergalactic war… and that if they are not already dead, they are being held prisoner, experimented on. The usuals of alien abduction, Sir.” Scully was confident. Mulder loved that about her. With almost everything she did or said, she did with confidence. 

 

Skinner sighed once more, leaning back in his chair, looking at the two agents in front of him. At least nobody had been killed who wasn’t already presumed dead and there were no damages or medical bills to be paid for. It could have been a lot worse. “That will be all for this evening agents, dismissed.” 

 

Scully and Mulder went to stand up but apparently, Skinner wasn’t finished, the two of them coming to a stop as he spoke up once more. “Not you Mulder. I need to have a word with you.” 

 

Mulder looked at Skinner, then at Scully who gave him a simple, supportive look of encouragement and closed the door behind her, leaving the two alone in Skinner’s office. 

~ ~ ~


End file.
